Neville Goddard (July 16, 1969)
Tonight’s subject is: Pre-Existence. For every child born of woman, there is a “son” of God in the heavens, who is his ancestral Self. He is buried in you. He is the Reality of man. The Bible speaks of this “son” as Jesus Christ, the true identity of every child born of woman.
“God became man, that man may become God.”
[Blake, from “Jerusalem”]
What we read in the Bible concerning Jesus is all about you. It’s your biography. The Old Testament is the prophetic blueprint of the life of Jesus, and the story of Jesus as told in the New Testament, which is the fulfillment of the Old, is your story. And the day will come when you will experience everything recorded in the New Testament concerning Jesus Christ, – but everything. This is the great mystery of our being.
We are not some little product of evolution, as many teach today. We didn’t come out of some little amoeba. You are the emanation of a Son of God! As we are told in the book of Deuteronomy, the 32nd chapter:
“The Lord has set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.”
Today they are speaking of curtailing the reproduction of humanity, limiting the births of men. Then we are told, not one child could be born, were it not for a Son of God who is the life of that child. For He has actually “set bounds to the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” Read it in the 8th verse, the 32nd chapter, of Deuteronomy.
You couldn’t breathe as a child, were it not that God is within you. And then you say, “I am” – that’s Him. That is the Son of God, and the Son of God is one with God. “I and my Father are one.”
“I came out from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
Isn’t that pre-existence? I came out from the Father, and I have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world, and I am going to the Father. But I will not leave this world – this earth – until I awake as Jesus Christ.
Now, this world does not terminate at the point where my senses cease to register it. I can’t follow a friend who goes beyond through the gate we call “death.” And I think he is gone from the world. He hasn’t gone from any world! He is in this world! “This world” does not cease to be when my senses cease to touch it – to register it.
He is in a world terrestrial, just like this, in a garment clothed as these “garments” [indicating the physical body] are, of flesh and blood. And he passes through similar conditions; and the One within, Who is the Son of God, he is guiding him, sending him through all the “furnaces of affliction” that are necessary to awaken him as Himself. And the Son of God is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God,” as told us in the first chapter of Corinthians:
“Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:24)
So, in the end, there is only God, and everything is the expansion of God. Now here is a Psalm, considered the most difficult Psalm of the hundred and fifty. It is the 82nd. What is currently considered the best interpretation of Scripture is the Interpreter’s Bible. It comes in twelve volumes and four extra in the form of a dictionary – 16 volumes of around a thousand pages to a volume. A perfectly marvelous work! In this it says, “in truth we do not know very much about this Psalm. We can only hope that we are not far away from the truth.”
Well, the most scholarly of all Biblical criticisms we find in a book called The Encyclopedia Biblica. The one who is the head of the Hebraic section of that, and also one of the editors of the entire work, Thomas Chaney, speaking of this Psalm says, “This is the most difficult Psalm for the scholar, that the meaning might have been understood.” It might have been in some strange way something that some one at one time understood. “But I must confess that none of us understand it today.” Now, this is Thomas Chaney. At the time he edited this work back in the end of the last Century, it was considered then – and still is today – the most scholarly of all the higher forms of Scriptural criticism. Now this is the story. This is what it says:
“God has taken His place in the Divine Council.” This literally means in the congregation of the gods. God has taken His place in the congregation of gods, and now God speaks. In the midst of them, now, He is holding judgment.
I say, “Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.”
God stands in the congregation of His sons. All the sons make up God. The word translated here, as “God” is the word “Elohim.” It’s a plural word. It is also translated in the plural, “gods.”
“God has taken His place in the Divine Council” – that word is “Elohim.” “In the midst of the gods He holds judgment” – that word “gods” is “Elohim,” the same word.
But the scholars can’t quite understand. Here we have the word “Elohim,” and it’s defined in the singular; and then a little farther on it’s defined in the plural, “gods.”
He has taken His place in the congregation of the gods. He is in the midst of the gods now; He is holding judgment. And now He speaks to the gods. He tells them that they are sons of the Most High – all of them, but every one. Nevertheless, they will die – “die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.”
Do you know who He is speaking to? He is speaking to you! We are the “gods” who came down into the world of “death,” and took upon ourselves the limit of contraction, which is man, and experienced “death.”
Then we are told in the letter to the Philippians: “Jesus, though he was in the form of God… He emptied Himself, and took upon himself the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)
Well, this [indicating the physical body] is the only “cross” that Jesus ever “wore.” The human form is the cross of God! He humbled himself. In what way? He took upon himself the form of a slave. No matter how powerful a man is in this world – if I owned the earth, and if every one in this world is a slave of mine, I have no power to command any one to perform the natural functions of my body for me. I am a slave of the body that I “wear.” Every function of my body that is natural must be performed for the body by the being – called a living form. I myself must perform it! I must eat and assimilate, and what I can’t assimilate, I must eliminate. And no one in the world can do it for me. I am a slave of the body that I “wear.” So, “he took upon himself the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And finding himself in human form, he humbled himself” – that’s his humility – “and became obedient unto death” – everything here dies. Everything in this world dies. No matter what it is, it comes in, it waxes, it wanes, and it disappears. No matter how well it is made or how old – four thousand years old – things are destined to vanish from the face of this earth. Everything comes, it waxes, it wanes, it vanishes. This is the world of “death” into which God came, for one purpose: to expand His creative power, His wisdom.
We are the gods that came down! And you say, “I am”? That’s He. “That’s His name forever.” Your own wonderful human imagination is God! And there is no other god. In every form, regardless of appearances – the same God. No difference, because God is one, though He appears as many. One in many; that’s the word “Elohim” – a compound unity, one made up of others. But the scholars cannot understand this statement:
“God has taken His place in the Divine Council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgment.” And now He speaks: “I say, ‘Ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die – die like men, and fall as one man, O Princes.’”
Just one man fell, carrying with him all!
As told in Scripture, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. And one man fell into division, and we have all the races, all the nations, all the religions and yet all are contained in one. And we will remain on earth until we are called, one by one, back into that body; but this time when we are called, the body that is resurrected – going back one by one to incorporate into that same one body that fell. And what a glorious reunion because of the experience of “death”!
He comes into the world of “death” and conquers it. He has overcome death. Here everything dies, and yet he overcomes everything in this world. It is a world of “death.”
So, the Bible is your own wonderful biography. Jesus Christ is the true identity of every child born of woman. A little child comes out of the womb and you see it; the reality of that child is Jesus Christ.
Hold it in your hands – you are holding that child that is Jesus Christ in your hands! But that child, to leave this world of “death” has to be “born again.”
The “second birth” is not reincarnation. It hasn’t a thing to do with reincarnation. We are born first “from below” – from the womb of woman. We are born the second time from the skull of man. By “man,” I mean generic man. “Male-female made He them, and called their name Man.” Read that in Scripture: “Male-female made He them, and called their name Man” – capitalized. I speak of generic Man. The “second birth” is out of the skull of man, not from the womb of woman. The womb of woman brings us all in slavery, forming “garments” that leave man in slavery. I am the slave of this “garment” until I take it off.
And if tonight I am not “born from above,” I will find myself, if you call me “dead,” restored to life in a world just like this, but young – about 20 years of age. I do not go through the womb of woman any more. I am found in a world terrestrial, just like this, where I grow older, as I do here, where I struggle to make a living as I do here; where I have friends and enemies, as I have here; where I am weaving a garment of joy and woe, as I weave it here. I will “die” there, as I die here, and be restored once more into, once more, a lovely young body resembling this, only about 20 years of age, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in me. And I will repeat that until that moment in time when He Who made the decision to enter “death’s door” awakens within me. And when He awakens within me, I am He! And who then am I? Jesus Christ! There is no other. “I and my Father are one.”
So, “No one takes away my life. I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to lift it up again.”
Yet in spite of these statements in the book of John, we find through the ages many people speaking of a race of people called the Jews who crucified Jesus! It’s not so. Haven’t you read the Bible carefully? Read these words in Paul: “I have been crucified with God. It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God who loves me, and gave Himself for me.”
Here the Son of God emanating is the being in man; and He so loved His emanation that He entered “death’s door” – the human skull, and freed His emanation. And He laid down in the grave with me – the human skull – and there He dreams the dream of life as I am dreaming it now, until I awake; and when I awake, we aren’t two – we are one. “I am He.”
Every one will awake. Every one returns to the Father out of Which they came; and returning to the Father, they are the Father.
So, I came out from the Father, and I came into the world. I came and I am leaving again, and I am going to the Father. That is the story of every child born of woman. So, let them be; they are having a dream – some dreams, noble dreams, some dreams, ignoble dreams, but in the end, we are all being called, and all will be justified for, as we are told in the 8th chapter of the book of Romans: “Those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.”
There is the complete predestination. So, He justified. What is “justification”? Divine acquittal, for this is a “play.” This whole vast world is a play, and you and I are playing our parts, and these parts are forever. We leave the “parts” behind. And we are the actors playing; the part is left behind.
I have seen at least twelve “Hamlets.” And no two actors interpreted Hamlet alike. Yet, they use the same words. I recall seeing my last Hamlet played by Richard Burton, and he played it adorably, and he stepped upon the stage wearing a pair of grey slacks, the color of the slacks I am wearing now. And he had a black pullover shirt with short sleeves; and he played the entire “Hamlet” in that same costume: grey slacks and black pullover shirt. And he gave an entirely different meaning to the familiar passages of Shakespeare. It’s the same “Hamlet”! He came out on cue, and he departed on cue, and every one entered on cue and departed on cue. But he, the central figure – Hamlet – he gave an entirely different interpretation to the passages with which you and I are familiar.
When he spoke to his mother – and in that passage he says to the mother, – and you know this; it’s a familiar one: “Assume a virtue if you have it not.” Well, I have heard that time and again when it was treated seriously. He didn’t. He treated it lightly, because he didn’t believe she could ever assume a virtue. She had poisoned his father, and she now marries his uncle; and he despised her. And he says to her satirically as he sees her coming, “Oh, assume a virtue if you have it not.” He didn’t believe for one moment she could ever assume a virtue! So, he took the identical words that other “Hamlets” took and gave it an entirely different meaning.
So, you are playing a part, and you are allowed to interpret the part; but you came in on cue and you will depart on cue; and in spite of what our wise men called doctors today are telling us that they can prolong life – they are not prolonging life – you were born on time, as told you in the 3rd chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes:
“A time to be born, a time to die; a time to laugh, a time to cry;”…
There is not a thing new under the sun. The play is finished.
It is being said about the landing on the moon: “See? This has never happened before.” It has been in ages past, but there is no remembrance of former things. We have a little memory – no remembrance of former things; nor shall there be any remembrance of things that will come later among those who come after. We think it is all now, like a play.
You go to a play tonight. I saw a play last night. But to you, these are all new, and you’ll laugh tonight, as I did the night before. And you’ll cry, as I cried the night before. And you will think it is all new as the whole thing unfolds before your eyes; and I saw it the night before. And this is a marvelous “play” in which we are cast for a purpose. There is a purpose behind the entire thing.
So, we are not little beings that began. I began humanly almost 65 years ago? No, – I came out from the Father, and the Father has no beginning – no father, no mother, no genealogy. He is without gender, without number. I came out from that Source that has no origin. It is the Origin of all! And I came into a world that seems to begin and end. That is how God expands Himself. He takes upon Himself the limit of contraction – the limit of opacity; that, having reached the limit, He can again begin to expand. There is no limit to expansion, and no limit to translucency. So, He sends part of Himself off to go beyond what He was only by first reaching the limit of contraction. And that is how God is perpetually expanding Himself. And we are the “sons of God.” But it takes all the “sons” to make God!
So, when we are gathered one by one back into that resurrected form – the Risen Lord, we do not lose our identity. I will know you in Eternity. Do you know why? I knew you before you put on this “mask,” and you came into this world and put on this mask. I can’t see behind the mask; it’s like a masquerade – a great ball. And here my most intimate friend is wearing a mask, and I don’t see him. He’s wearing a black face, or he’s wearing a white face, or he’s wearing a yellow face; but he is wearing a face that I don’t recognize. I can’t recognize him at all. But behind the “mask” is my brother that I knew in Eternity, and I will know once more when he awakens from the dream of life and I awaken from the dream of life.
We return to the same form, improved beyond measure, for we came out of the world of “death,” having deliberately, consciously entered the world of “death.” And every one has a part they play in this world, into which we all volunteered when we came.
No one can take away my life. I laid it down myself. I have the power to lay it down, and the power to lift it up again; and no one takes it from me! We deliberately came down into this world to play these parts that we may expand our consciousness beyond what it was, prior to our descent into this world. For: “No one can ascend into heaven who did not first descend from heaven.”
I could not emerge from the tomb, were I not in it. I could not emerge from this world of “death,” did I not first descend into it. For: “No one can ascend but he who first descended, even the Son of Man.”
So, the “Son of Man” is a name for the “Son of God.” And that “Son of God” you are! So, whoever you are – if you bear the name of John, or some other name, your real name is Jesus. Because when you come out, He gives you a name that is above every name, and any name other than Jesus on earth and in heaven shall bow and confess Jesus is heir to the Glory of God the Father. And you are that Being! And there never was another. Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. And Jesus-in-you is your own wonderful human imagination. That’s Jesus.
Now, in this world you can test it. You can test it, because he is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. How do I test it? I dare to assume that I am what reason denies, and walk in the assumption that I am that, and if I persist in that assumption, it will harden into fact. And if “by Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made, and then suddenly I am confronted with the thing itself, having assumed that it is, and I assumed it when reason denied the fact, haven’t I found Him? If “by Him all things are made,” and I dare to assume what my senses deny and reason denies it, and yet I persist in the assumption, and then eventually it hardens into fact – well, did I not find the One Who makes things? And if “by Him all things are made, and without Him was not anything made that is made,” and I have found exactly how I did it – and I did it by simply assuming that I am what I would like to be, even though at the moment of my assumption everything denies that I could possibly be that, and then I became that – well then, I have found Jesus.
I only assumed that I was what my reason denied. How did I do it? By imagining. I have found my imagination to be the Lord Jesus, but eventually I will awaken as the Lord Jesus. How do I know? I know from experience that everything recorded in Scripture concerning Jesus, I have experienced – everything, I don’t care what it is.
I “wear” this “cross”; and may I tell you, when you and I were crucified on these “crosses,” it was sheer ecstasy. It was not painful at all, in spite of what the churches teach. It was sheer ecstasy when I felt myself “nailed” upon this “cross.” There were whirling vortices: each hand a vortex, my head a vortex, each foot a vortex, my right side a vortex. And here are these six vortices, and I can’t describe the ecstasy – sheer joy – when this night I relived the moment of the crucifixion. No one nailed me upon a wooden cross. This [indicating the physical body] is the “cross.” And I did it deliberately. Then memory faded. I am in a world of “death.”
So the crucifixion was not a painful act. It was a delightful act deliberately taken by God when He actually nailed Himself by vortices upon the cross of man. Now you go through all the parts, and then comes the moment that you are about to depart this world for the last time, and that begins your resurrection. And your resurrection is a glorious thing. It really is.
You awake to find yourself completely sealed in your skull. Your skull is a tomb, and you find yourself waking from a long, long sleep. You have no memory as to who put you there, but you know your skull is a tomb, and there you are in a tomb, but the tomb is your skull! And you awake, and you stand up in your skull, a being just as you are. And not a thing is in that skull but you! Not a thing is in it.
And now, you have one consuming desire, and that is to get out, and you have an innate wisdom as to what you should do, and you push the base of your skull, and something gives. It rolls away, leaving a little opening. Then you put your head through, and you squeeze yourself out inch by inch, like a child coming out of a womb – only instead of this being the womb of another, it’s the skull of your own being! You are “born from above.” And all of the imagery of Scripture now surrounds you. Here the “wise men” – normal men as you are, seated where there is the body out of which you came, and these three are the witnesses of your “birth.” They can’t see you because you are now spirit, but they know who was born. And one will say – calling you by name – in my case they say, “It is Neville’s child.” They find a little infant wrapped in swaddling clothes lying on the floor; and they announce whose child it is. In my case, one of them said, “It is Neville’s baby.”
The other two, in the most incredible voices, asked: “How could Neville have a baby?” He doesn’t argue the point; he just displays the evidence. And I took the evidence – the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and held it in my arms, and I said, “How is my sweetheart?” And then the whole thing began to dissolve, and I awoke upon my bed.
Here, this unearthly wind is present all along. The wind is the spirit, for the words wind and spirit are the same in Hebrew and in Greek. This unearthly wind is there through the entire drama.
Then everything said in Scripture concerning Jesus begins to unfold, and it unfolds in one thousand two hundred and sixty days, as told us both in Revelation and in the book of Daniel. And here four mighty acts take place, and you are the central figure in the drama.
You can hardly believe that something unnumbered centuries ago could be so accurate concerning a blueprint – a blueprint of salvation. Every one will pass through the same technique, the same drama, and every one will awaken as the Lord Jesus Christ! And because there aren’t two – only one, all will be gathered together into “one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,” who is above it all, through all, and in all. Only one, all gathered without loss of identity, and all are the father of that one son which comes into your experience in the second act. In the second act he stands before you and calls you, “Father”; and you know you are his father, and he knows he is your son; and there is no uncertainty as to the relationship between you and the son, who is the Son of God. So, only through the Son will you ever know Who-You-Really-Are.
In this world you may have many sons and many daughters; but there is only one Son that comes through as God’s Son. And you are the father of that Son. And only when He stands before you and calls you, “Father,” do you really know Who-You- Are.
So, in the end, every one returns to the Father as the Father! And you and I are one Being when we return from this division, which is for a purpose. So, we are preexistent beings. You did not begin in the womb of your earthly mother, and you do not end in the grave when some one puts you there in the not-distant future. Don’t be afraid; you’ve gone there unnumbered times! But you are only born twice: once through the womb of woman, and once through the skull of man – generic man.
“Unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“You, a master of Israel, and yet you do not know, Nicodemus, that unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven?”
No, he didn’t know that; yet he was a member of the Sanhedrin, This is like saying today that he is a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, – a priest of the church, if he didn’t know it, any more than they today know it, or the Pope knows it. Until it happens in them, they cannot speak from experience. And I am not theorizing, and I am not speculating; I am telling you what I know from my own experience. I also know that every one will have the experience, and no one will fail, or God would fail, and that’s impossible.
All His sons came down, for He gathered them all together in Himself: and not one child can be born in this world who does not have as an ancestor a Son of God, who comes with him. And that Son of God cannot give up.
Now, Scripture tells us in so many lovely ways. John does not tell the story of the birth as Luke tells it and as Matthew tells it, but John is the most profound of all the Gospels. John tells it, but he tells it in symbolism that is not understood by the people. He tells it in the form of the skull. It is called Golgotha. “Golgotha” means “skull.” When they laid him in the tomb, the tomb was empty, but the linen clothes were there; and lying near the linen clothes, but not with them, was the napkin. Well, John wrote the most profound mystical doctrine. He is telling it in symbolism for those who understand.
The “linen clothes” are called by all mystics the “garment” – this garment of flesh and blood – that which the female wove for man. So, the body was there out of which the spirit ascended. Then what is the “linen cloth”? The “linen cloth”… that is the body. Then what is the “napkin”? In the ancient world “napkin” has a far greater number of meanings than today. Today a “napkin” means – we speak of a dinner napkin, a cocktail napkin, a sanitary napkin. But in the ancient world “napkin” meant the afterbirth – the placenta, that which is not part of the body – after the birth, but it must be ejected from the body. And so, it’s not part of the body after something that is born. So, after the Lord is born, that is only the sign of His birth. So, the “napkin” was not found with the “linen clothes.” It was found apart from the “linen clothes.” Those who understand symbolism will know what John is trying to tell the reader: that a birth took place – where? In the skull, for this is a description of the skull.
They came to Golgotha where he was buried. He was crucified in Golgotha, and he was buried on Golgotha, and he rose from the same tomb in which he was buried; and it’s Golgotha, which means the skull! “Skull” means the “cranium.” “Calvary” is the skull. So, here you find two objects: the body, symbolized as the “linen clothes”; and then you find the symbol of the birth, and that was the “napkin.” Well, the napkin simply was the afterbirth, signifying to those who understood symbolism what took place in that skull. A birth took place, but he who was born is now Spirit, and mortal eyes cannot see Spirit. God is Spirit. And you aren’t going to see the wonderful form – it is God being born! You will only see the “garment” out of which He was born.
So, he came into the world and took the “cross” and remains in this world. Unnumbered times he passes through the gate called “death,” and is restored in a similar body to continue the struggle until the end; and at the very end, then he is born – “born from above.” And that “birth from above” is God being born!
“Unto you this day, in the City of David, God is born,” – a Saviour is born; and the “Saviour” in Scripture is the Lord.
“I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, – your Saviour; and beside Me there is no saviour.” The only saviour to be born would be the Lord God Jehovah. So, the Saviour is born; but they can’t believe. They see the form out of which He came, and they see the evidence of the birth when they see the napkin. So, John, the most profound of the Evangelists, told it in his own wonderful unique way.
When you read it now in the book of Luke and in the book of Matthew, it is told so clearly to a normal birth that people have confused it with the natural birth from the womb of woman. It hasn’t a thing to do with the womb of woman, for that bears all beings into slavery. Every child coming through the womb of a woman is bearing the cross of the slave; but when you come out of the skull of man, you are now free from the world of “death,” and it is God that is born! So, you came from the Father, and you came into the world. Again, you will one day leave this world of “death” and return to the Father. But when you return, you – the Creative Power of God and the Wisdom of God – have been expanded beyond the wildest dreams. You are then truly glorifying God. And you can say, as in the 17th [chapter] of John: “I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do. Now glorify Thou me with Thine own Glory, with the Self that I had with Thee before that the world was.
If I had this “Glory with Thee before that the world was,” isn’t that pre-existence? I am asking now, having emptied myself of my Glory to perform this work in the world of “death” – I am asking now to return to that which I gave up in order to come down into the world of death.
I cannot pretend that I am here. I don’t pretend that I am a man. I took upon myself all the weaknesses and all the limitations of man. If I came into this world knowing I was God all along, I could not accomplish anything. I had to completely empty myself of my Father in order to fulfill the plan. If I came knowing, well, I could do anything if I knew the power of God; but I had to completely empty myself.
When I say, “I,” I am speaking collectively – all of us. So, we are not pretending that we are men. We had to actually become man in this state called “death,” and “wear” the “cross” of man – not pretending, but actually feel it so we could cry on the cross; “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” I can so completely forget Who I Am that I cry out to a god other than my Self as though there were such a god, and ask him, “Why did you forsake me?” proving I did not pretend I was a man. I had to actually become a man and completely forget that I was God, and empty myself before I could become man.
You are a pre-existent being, but at the moment you are not yet aware of it. I hope it is not too far from now that you will awake and have all the experiences of which I have spoken that I have experienced. I speak from experience. The story of Jesus is the story of humanity. And one day, every one – every child born of woman – will have that experience of Jesus and know he himself is the Lord Jesus Christ!
Let’s enter the Silence.
Questions & Answers
(Following the Silence)
Question by a lady: You have told us that when we leave this segment of time, we are restored to another world just like this one. Do we come back and play these parts again?
Neville: No, you have played them. But “Hamlet” remains after Burton played the part, to be played by other actors who will interpret it a little differently. When Blake made that statement that seems to confuse so many scholars – he said, “Many suppose that before Creation, all was solitude and chaos.” He said, “That is the most pernicious idea that could enter the mind of man, for it takes away all sublimity from the Bible … and makes the one who entertains the thought” a little groveling worm. Now he makes this bold, bold assertion: “Eternity exists, and all things in Eternity, independent of Creation, which was an act of Mercy” [from “A Vision of the Last Judgment”].
He looks upon the whole vast world, with all that is in it and all the combinations – everything as part of the eternal structure of the universe. What he means by “creation” is that here this structure is animated by spirit entering the body. I enter “Hamlet,” and Hamlet becomes, now, not just a costume hanging in a play, but he becomes a living, animated being. So, first we animate the body, but that is not the ultimate of creation. I then must become, not only a living being, I must become a life-giving spirit. That is when we awake from the dream of life where we only dream of the journey, and we are life-giving spirits – one with God the Father.
For, “as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” So, until that is part of my being, I am only an animated body – animating the form that I “wear.” So, these “garments” will be “played” by actors, and “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.” The actor-in-Man is his imagination. That’s God.
Question by a man: Is there any clue by which one can know that it is time to awake?
Neville: I will bring that up on Friday [Friday, July 18, 1969] night in “Eschatology.” “Eschatology” simply means the doctrine of the last things. But when these things appear, you will know that the time is at hand. That’s eschatology, the doctrine of the last things.
So, if you are prophesying, as some of these people said the other day – they said that California is going to sink into the ocean or something, you have no idea how many intelligent people left the State and went elsewhere, Now they are coming back very sheepishly.
I have a few friends – they wouldn’t tell me why they left, but they called me up suddenly one day. He has a lovely income without working. He has a beautiful home in Encino – lovely home. I’ve gone there several times. He is a perfectly wonderful host. They have no children – he and his wife; they have a dog and a lovely home, with beautiful gardens and lovely fruit trees. They left that home and move to Arizona, and they gave me the excuse that, “Oh, the smog was so terrible.” We’ve had that for years now; but suddenly, after all these years, he can’t take it. But I knew exactly when he spoke on the phone – I knew intuitively exactly why he was leaving. He waited six weeks, and it didn’t sink; so he came back. After about two weeks he called me up, and I knew from his tone of voice that he was hoping I would not suspect, but I would never tell him! It would be unkind to tell him I knew that. But he listens to all these little radio programs at night be these people they get to sell toothpaste; and all through the night he sits up, instead of reading the Bible or reading some wonderful work – read a beautiful poem – the great poets, read them. No, he turns on the radio, and then all through the night, he makes notes of these silly things by the way. He even puts them on paper – writes letters to the papers. Well, of course, he doesn’t have to work; he has a lovely income, but maybe he needs a job to keep his mind occupied with all this nonsense. But you have no idea what people will do, and they are intelligent people! This man is a very intelligent man, judged by human standards. But “the wisdom of men is foolishness in the eyes of God.” So, what can you do? Leave them alone.
Question by a lady: [The question is largely inaudible on the tape.] Do they have warnings of these experiences?
Neville: My dear, no. They come suddenly upon you “like a thief in the night,” without warning. It was right here in this City – in that hotel, – it was there that mine began, and then when I went back to my home in Southern California, the other three major events took place over a period of three and a half years, or one thousand two hundred and sixty days. You can count it out to the very day, and it comes to exactly 1,260 days, just as told in Scripture.
You don’t have any warning, but you do have something that happens prior to that. But I will tell you; I will tell you on Friday. There is a shock that comes to the mind first; the mind is shocked. And then suddenly without warning, the child is born – you are born. You will come to David. All those things happen in you, as though they were taking place in a world just as real as this. But I will bring this out in detail, as well as I can, when my subject is: “Eschatology.”
Now, they all speak of “eschatology,” but I wonder how many of them know what I am talking about? I read in the paper that some one was talking about eschatology; but what he means by “eschatology” is so far removed from “eschatology” – he means that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh in the not-distant future, and he hopes that he will be here to meet him: something coming from without. He has not the slightest idea who Jesus Christ is – not the slightest idea! He doesn’t realize that “Jesus Christ” is the Cosmic Christ that is buried in humanity. Humanity is the “cross” that he “wears.” And when he comes, he comes, not from without; he comes from within as he in whom He rises!
He is looking for some being to come from without, and he is going to be there to shake the hand of a person on the outside. He has got fifty thousand people to come up and confess to Christ. What Christ? Well, that is the peculiar thing that he has in his mind’s eye concerning Christ. He hasn’t the slightest idea what Jesus Christ really is.
Question by a lady: [The question is inaudible on the tape.]
Neville: First of all, this is Scripture, as recorded in the Bible. He did not know Scripture, and he told them so. The one that is named is Nicodemus; and Nicodemus followed him. The others thought they knew it by conforming to the letter. He said, “I have come to interpret Scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me”; and they thought it was fulfilled on the outside by obeying so- called external commands, and it was not so at all.
So, I cannot be silent when I see these flagrant contradictions of the greatest mystery in the world; and a highly publicized individual means nothing to me. I am not impressed by any publicized individual. I can take any press agent and send him out if I had enough money, like this little thing called Maharishi-something [Maharishi Mahesh Yogi] and I heard him on TV. They said to him, “Now you are publicizing yourself. Jesus didn’t do this.”
Do you “know what he said? He said, “Well, that’s why he took so long to get started.” The lady: [Something about “cruel.”]
Neville: Cruel? Well, my dear, if that is cruel, I am sorry. But I can’t see anything cruel in taking nonsense and shutting it up. If you gave me a piece of paper now on which you wrote something to me that is completely wrong and false based upon Scripture, and I tore it up, I wouldn’t call that cruel. I am instructing you.
Man lives in this world by struggle. The first thing you do with a baby when it comes into this world is spank it to make it cry so that it will breathe. Spoil him, and you are going to get a bunch of hippies in the world.
Question by another lady: Is the Bible correct when it says – [most of this question is not clear on the tape.] I would like very much to know. It’s very important to me to understand what that means.
Neville: My dear, the Bible is not secular history. So don’t look at July the 2nd or any other date or time of the year. The Bible is sacred history. It does not record any event that ever took place on earth. It is not speaking of any man who ever walked the face of the earth. You are completely mistaking personifications for persons.
The lady: But if you look at the chapter –
Neville: I don’t care what chapter, my dear. It is not secular history. The Bible is sacred history, and it has already been brought to climax and fulfillment. The climax is Jesus Christ. It is already finished; the “play” is finished, like the plays of Shakespeare are finished, but they are being played over and over and over, and each one brings to climax the final curtain. One day you will come into the climax of the “play,” and you are Jesus Christ; and no one is going to know it. You will tell it to those who will listen to you, but you are not playing to the gallery. It doesn’t matter who on earth knows that you awoke within yourself as Jesus Christ. Those on high who wait for your return are rejoicing. Those on earth are giving all their praise to the highly publicized people. There was a time not far removed from now when tens and tens of millions cheered Hitler, and thought that he was the saviour of the world. Tens of millions cheered Stalin. He saw to it that statues were built for him. He renamed one of the cities after himself – Stalingrad. Now it is Volgograd [Name changed from Stalingrad to Volgograd in 1961: originally known as Tsaritsa.].