This is the Promise, your Promise

Today, most believers will follow a man, based on his fruit. They will flock a church based on the evidence of miracles as evidence of the presence of God in that church. Today I want to reiterate it to you the reader that while with men, it may not be possible, but with God and that man who believes, all things are possible. The man who believes he can do what God does, because the man who believes is the man who knows and is always conscious that God dwells in them. That man says "I and the Father are ONE". He knows that when He says the words "I AM" he has mentioned the Lord, who dwells in him. This man does not see God as separate from him..... For he knows that the Lord is our Husband, and that He became Man that man may become God, and that the two would forever be ONE.

)"For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God." (Isaiah 54:5-6).

"'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."" (Mark 10:7-9).

How and at what point is the Lord and Man One. That point is Jesus and we can only understand or relate to it through the proper use of imagination that is consciously exercised.

Below is an account by Neville Goddard where various Men and women created stage plays in their imagination, plays implying the fulfillment of their desires. Then, by imagining themselves participating in these dramas they created that which their imaginal acts implied. This is the wise use of God's law.

But "No man is justified before God by the law." Gal. 3:11.

Many people are interested in Imaginism as a way of life, but are not at all interested in its framework of faith, a faith leading to the fulfillment of God's promise.

"I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body . . . I will be his father, and he shall be my son."
2 Sam. 7:12-14.

The promise that God will bring forth from our body a son who will be "born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" does not concern them. They want to know God's law, not His promise. However, this miraculous birth has been stated clearly as a must for all mankind from the earliest days of the Christian fellowship.

"You must be born from above,"
John. 3:7.

My purpose here is to state it again and to state it in such language and with such reference to my own personal mystical experiences that the reader will see that this birth "from above" is far more than a part of a dispensable superstructure, that it is the sole purpose for God's creation.

Specifically, my purpose in recording these four mystical experiences is to show what "Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead" (Rev. 1.5) was trying to say about this birth from above. "How can men preach unless they are sent?" Rom. 10:15.

Many years ago, I was taken in spirit into a Divine Society, a Society of men in whom God is awake. Though it may seem strange, the gods do truly meet. As I entered this society, the first to greet me was the embodiment of infinite Might. His was a power unknown to mortals. I was then taken to meet infinite Love. He asked me, "What is the greatest thing in the world?" I answered him in the words of Paul, "faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." At that moment, he embraced me and our bodies fused and became one body. I was knit to him and loved him as my own soul. The words, "love of God" so often a mere phrase, were now a reality with a tremendous meaning. Nothing ever imagined by man could be compared with this love which man feels through his union with Love. The most intimate relationship on earth is like living in separate cells compared with this union.

While I was in this state of supreme delight, a voice from outer space shouted, "Down with the blue bloods!" At this blast, I found myself standing before the one who had first greeted me, he who embodied infinite Might. He looked into my eyes and without the use of words or mouth; I heard what he told me: "Time to act." I was suddenly whisked out of that Divine Society and returned to earth. I was tormented by my limitations of understanding but I knew that on that day the Divine Society had chosen me as a companion and sent me to preach Christ — God's promise to man.

My mystical experiences have brought me to accept literally, the saying that all the world's a stage. And to believe that God plays all the parts. The purpose of the play? To transform man, the created, into God, the creator. God loved man, his created, and became man in faith that this act of self-commission would transform man — the created, into God — the creator.

The play begins with the crucifixion of God on man — as man — and ends with the resurrection of man — as God. God becomes as we are, that we may be as He is. God becomes man that man may become, first — a living being, and secondly — a life- giving spirit.

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." —Gal.2:20

God took upon Himself the form of man and became obedient unto death — even death on the cross of man — and is crucified on Golgotha, the skull of man. God himself enters death's door — the human skull — and lies down in the sepulcher-aka-the grave of man or the arc [the human body] to make man a living being. God's mercy turned death into sleep. Then began the prodigious and unthinkable metamorphosis of man, the transformation of man into God.

No man, unaided by the crucifixion of God [without God choosing to become flesh and blood - as symbolised by the work of the cross], could cross the threshold that admits to conscious life, but now we have union with God in His crucified self or in His crucified state. He lives in us as our wonderful human imagination. "Man is all imagination, and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination — that is, God, himself." When He rises in us we will be like Him and He will be like us. Then all impossibilities will dissolve in us at that touch of exaltation which His rising in us will impart to our nature.

Here is the secret of the world: God died to give man life and to set man free, for however clearly God is aware of His creation, it does not follow that man, imaginatively created, is aware of God. To work this miracle God had to die, then rise again as man, and this rising of God as Man is embodied in the resurrection of Jesus from death. Which none has ever expressed it so clearly as William Blake.

Blake says
— or rather has Jesus say — "Unless I die, thou canst not live; but if I die I shall arise again and thou with me. Wouldest thou love one who never died for thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee? And if God dieth not for man and giveth not himself eternally for man, man could not exist."

So God dies — that is to say — God has freely given himself for man. Deliberately, He has become man and has forgotten that He is God, in the hope that man, thus created, will eventually rise as God. God has so completely offered His own self for man, that He cries out on the cross of man, "My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me?" He has completely forgotten that He is God.This shows you that God left nothing in emptying himself into Humanity. But after God rises in one man, that man will say to his brothers, "Why stand we here, trembling around, calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?"

This first man that has been raised from the dead is known as Jesus Christ — the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep, the first-born of the dead. It is for man, that God died; now, it is through man, that also the resurrection of the dead also came. Jesus Christ resurrects his dead Father by becoming his father. In Adam — the universal man — God sleeps. In Jesus Christ—the individualized God —God awakens. In being crucified by living in the Flesh, the Creator became the created ...the manifestor became the manifestation ...the creator went into a deep slumber. In waking, man the created, has become God, the creator, and can truly say, "Before the world was, I am." Just as God in His love for man so completely identified Himself with man that He forgot that He was God, so man in his love for God must so completely identify himself with God that he lives the life of God, that is, Imaginatively.

God's play which transforms man into God is revealed to us in the Bible. It is completely consistent in imagery and symbolism. The New Testament is hid in the Old Testament, and the old is manifested in the new. The Bible is a vision of God's Law and His Promise. It was never intended to teach history but rather to lead man in faith through the furnaces of affliction to the fulfillment of God's promise, to rouse man from this profound sleep and awaken him as God. Its characters live not in the past but in an imaginative eternity. They are personifications of the eternal spiritual states of the soul. They mark man's journey through eternal death and his awakening to eternal life.

The Old Testament tells us of God's promise. The New Testament tells us not how this promise was fulfilled but how it is fulfilled. The central theme of the Bible is the direct, individual, mystical experience of the birth of the child, that child of whom the prophet spoke ". . . to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder; and his name will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end . .." Isaiah 9:6-7

When the child is revealed to us we see it, we experience it, and the response to this revelation can be stated in the words of Job, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee." The story of the incarnation is not fable, allegory or some carefully contrived fiction to enslave the minds of men, but mystical fact. It is a personal mystical experience of the birth of oneself out of one's own skull, symbolized in the birth of a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying on the floor.

There is a distinction between hearing of this birth of a child from one's own skull — a birth which no scientist or historian could ever possibly explain — and actually experiencing the birth — holding in your own hands and seeing with your own eyes this miraculous child — a child born from above out of your own skull, a birth contrary to all the laws of nature. The question as it is posed in the Old Testament, "Ask now, and see, can a male bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands delivering himself like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?" Jer: 30.6. The Hebrew word "chalats" mistranslated "loins" means: to draw out, to deliver, to withdraw self. The drawing of oneself out of one's own skull was exactly what the prophet foresaw as the necessary birth from above, a birth giving man entrance into the kingdom of God and reflective perception on the highest levels of Being. Throughout the ages "Deep calls to deep . . . Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Awake!"

The event, as it is recorded in the Gospels, actually takes place in man. But of that day or that hour when the time will come for the individual to be delivered, no one knows but the Father. "Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit." John: 3:7-8

This revelation in the Gospel of John is true. Here is my experience of this birth from above. Like Paul, I did not receive it from man — nor was I taught it. It came through the actual mystical experience of being born from above. None can speak truly of this mystical birth from above but one who has experienced it. I had no idea that this birth from above was literally true. Who, before the experience, could believe that the child, the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace was inwoven in his own skull?

Who, before the experience, would understand that his Maker is his Husband and the Lord of Hosts is His Name? --Isaiah 54:5.

Who would believe that the creator went in unto His own creation, man, and knew it to be Himself and that this entrance into the skull of man — this union of God and man — resulted in the birth of a Son out of the skull of man; which birth gave to that man eternal life and union with his creator forever?

If I now tell what I experienced that night I do so not to impose my ideas on others but that I may give hope to those who, like Nicodemus, wonder how can a man be born when he is old? How can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? How can this be? This is how it happened to me. Therefore, I will now "write the vision"; and "make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end — it will not lie. If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith." Hab. 2:2-4.

In the early hours of the morning on July 20, 1959, in the city of San Francisco, a heavenly dream in which the arts flourished was suddenly interrupted by the most intense vibration centered at the base of my skull. Then a drama, as real as those I experience when I am fully awake, began to unfold. I awoke from a dream to find myself completely entombed within my skull. I tried to force my way out through its base. Something gave way and I felt myself move head downward, through the base of my skull. I squeezed myself out, inch by inch. When I was almost out, I held what I took to be the foot of the bed and pulled the remaining portion of me out of my skull. There, on the floor, I lay for a few seconds.

Then I rose and looked at my body on the bed. It was pale of face lying on its back and tossing from side to side like one in recovery from a great ordeal. As I contemplated it, hoping that it would not fall off the bed, I became aware that the vibration which started the whole drama was not only in my head but now was also coming from the corner of the room. As I looked over to that corner I wondered if that vibration could be caused by a very high wind, a wind strong enough to vibrate the window. I did not realize that the vibration which I still felt within my head was related to that which seemed to be coming from the corner of the room.

Looking back to the bed, I discovered that my body was gone but in its place sat my three older brothers. My oldest brother sat where the head was. My second and third brothers sat where the feet were. None seemed to be aware of me, although I was aware of them and could discern their thoughts. I suddenly became aware of the reality of my own invisibility. I noticed that they, too, were disturbed by the vibration coming from the corner of the room. My third brother was the most disturbed and went over to investigate the cause of the disturbance. His attention was attracted by something on the floor and looking down he announced, "It's Neville's baby." My other two brothers, in most incredulous voices, asked "How can Neville have a baby?"

My brother lifted the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid him on the bed. I, then, with my invisible hands lifted the babe and asked him "How is my sweetheart?" He looked into my eyes and smiled and I awoke into this realm — to ponder this greatest of my many mystical experiences.

Tennyson has a description of Death as a warrior — a skeleton

"high on a night-black horse," issuing forth at midnight. But when Gareth's sword cut through the skull, there was in it. . .
". . . the bright face of a blooming boy Fresh as a flower new-born."
(Idylls of theKing)
Tennyson

Two other visions I will tell because they bear out the truth of my assertion that the Bible is mystical fact, that everything written about the promised child in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be mystically experienced in the imagination of the individual. The child's birth is a sign and a portent, signalling the resurrection of David, the Lord's anointed, of whom He said,

"You are my son, today I have begotten you." Psalms 2:7

Five months after the birth of the child, on the morning of December 6, 1959, in the city of Los Angeles, a vibration similar to the one which preceded his birth started in my head. This time its intensity was centered at the top of my head. Then came a sudden explosion and I found myself in a modestly furnished room. There, leaning against the side of an open door was my son David of Biblical fame. He was a lad in his early teens. What struck me forcibly about him was the unusual beauty of his face and figure. He was — as he is described in the first book of Samuel — ruddy, with beautiful eyes and very handsome.

Not for one moment did I feel myself to be anyone other than who I am now. Yet, I knew that this lad, David, was my son, and he knew that I was his father; for "the wisdom from above is without uncertainty." As I sat there contemplating the beauty of my son, the vision faded and I awoke.

" 'I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.'

Isaiah 8.18. God gave me David as my very own son. 'I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from your body . . . I will be his father, and he shall be my son.' 2 Sam. 7.12-14. God is known in no other way than through the Son.

" 'No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.' Luke. 10.22. The experience of being David's Father is the end of man's pilgrimage on earth. The purpose of life is to find the Father of David, the Lord's anointed, the Christ.

king Soul asking one of his subjects inquired, 'Abner, whose son is this youth?' And Abner said, 'As your soul lives, O king, I cannot tell.' And the king said, 'Inquire whose son the stripling is.' And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.

And Saul said to him, 'Whose son are you, young man?' And David answered, 'I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.' 1 Sam:17:55-58. Jesse is any form of the verb 'to be.' In other words, I Am the Son of who I Am, I am self begotten, I Am the Son of God, the Father. I And my Father are one. I am the image of the invisible God. He who has seen me has seen the Father. "

'Whose son . . . ?' is not about David but about David's Father, whom the king had promised (1 Sam: 17:25) to make free in Israel. Note: in all these passages (1 Sam:17:55,56,58) the king's inquiry is not about David but about David's Father. 'I have found David, my servant; . . . He shall cry to me, "Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation. And I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth.' " —Psalms. 89.

The individual who is born from above will find David and know him to be his very own son. Then he will ask the Pharisees — who are always with us — "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" And when they say to him, "The son of David." He will say to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord . . . If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?"

Matt: 22.41-45. Man's misconception of the role of the Son — which is only a sign and a portent — has made the Son an idol. "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John. 5.21. This is the creation of an external form and giving it the status of God-the-Father.

God awakes; and that man in whom he awakes becomes his own father's father. He who was David's son, "Jesus Christ, the son of David" Matt: 1.1. has become David's Father. The Father is He who comes to the end of the Law and of Self, to resurrect into self-discovery, that He is self-imprisoned in the flesh...for this reason... The point when you know that no matter what, you are a life giving Spirit.

No longer will I cry to "our father David, thy child." Acts. 4.25. "I have found David." He has cried to me, "Thou art my Father." Ps. 89. David represents man, in the sense of the word, in whom Jesus is buried, and the son, is the Father that is self begotten in the moment of the resurrection. No one knows the Father, except the Son begotten of the Father.

Now I know myself to be one of the Elohim, the God who became man, that man may become God. "Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion." 1 Tim. 3.16. If the Bible were history it would not be a mystery. It would check out with all archeology and would only serve as a physical fact and no spiritual revelation would be inherent for us. Yes some stories have checked out, but it is written to say much more and much deeper that just history.

"Wait for the promise of the Father." Acts. 1.4. that is, for David—God's Son—who will reveal you as the Father. This promise, says Jesus, you heard from me (Luke 24:49) and to its fulfillment at that moment in time when it pleases God to give you his Son — as "your offspring, which is Christ." Gal.3.16.

A figure of speech is used for the purpose of calling attention to, emphasizing and intensifying the reality of the literal sense. The truth is literal; the words used are figurative. "The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split." Matt: 27.51.

On the morning of April 8, 1960—four months after it was revealed to me that I am David's father—a bolt of lightning out of my skull split me in two from the top of my skull to the base of my spine. I was cleft as though I were a tree that had been struck by lightning. Then I felt and saw myself as a golden liquid light moving up my spine in a serpentine [wriggling] motion; as I entered my skull it vibrated like an earthquake.

"Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar." "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up." John. 3.14.

These mystical experiences will help to rescue the Bible from the externals of history, persons and events, and to restore it to its real significance in the life of man. Scripture must be fulfilled "in" us. God's promise will be fulfilled. You will have these experiences: "And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sa-ma-ri-a and to the end of the earth." Acts. 1:8.

The widening circle — Jerusalem . . . Judea . . . Samaria the end of the earth — is God's plan. This plan of God...is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Habakkuk 2:3). This plan is a sure promise.

The Promise is still maturing to its time, its appointed time, but how long, vast and severe the trials e're you find David, your son, who will reveal you as God, The Father, were long to tell; but it hastens to the end; it will not fail. So wait, for there will be no postponement.

"Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, in the spring, and Sarah shall have a son." Gen. 18:14.

What is born again or being born from above?

I will begin by telling you of a wonderful story in the book of John and unlike other stories this one is not repeated in the other Gospels and the only account of this incident is in the Gospel of John. You will not hear this story being mentioned in Mathew, Mark or Luke...

It is a story about a staunch member of the Pharisees who comes serreptitiouslly by night like a thief, to see Jesus. This dude was a core member of the Sanhedrin, the highest body of a religious order, at a time when Israel was a theocracy. Israel was ruled by Rabbis and here comes the highest of them to seek Jesus out under the cover of darkness.

This fellow who was well schooled in the religious scriptures, had Identified something in what Jesus taught that he knew to be in his own scripture, but somehow he had been failing to put the pieces together and neither of his colleagues could join the dots to the questions he had.

Anyways he furtively comes to see Jesus and below is John's Account of the story

John 3:2-11, Msg Bible

There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it.

How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' stuff?

Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation--the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life--it's not possible to enter God's kingdom.

When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch--the Spirit--and becomes a living spirit."So don't be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be 'born from above'--out of this world, so to speak.

"You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it's headed next. That's the way it is with everyone 'born from above' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God."

"Nicodemus asked, "What do you mean by this? How does this happen?" Jesus said, "You're a respected teacher of Israel and you don't know these basics? "

"Listen carefully. I'm speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes. There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay. Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. "

"If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see, the things of God? "No one has ever gone up into the presence of God except the One who came down from that Presence, the Son of Man. "

In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up-- "

"and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life. "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life."

What I make of the above passage is that Nicodemus represents Man and as always Man prefers to go with that which is tangible in this 3d world, that which can be proven by scientific means. To him that is more solid and more believable. Spiritual things have no place in the lives of many today, and even in the so called "Spiritual- Places" of gathering, its the proven things that are beheld by the eye weigh more than the truth of the bible.

Nicodemus like many a person did not know of any other kind of birth. While he had been schooled in theology, he knew nothing of the birth from above nor of the things of the spirit.

We know that a bean seed begets beans, because the life-germ is in the seed. If you follow the trail of any bean seed backwards it leads you to the very first bean to ever be created, which finally dissolves into God the Father- The Source and somewhere in there you can trace it to His creative Imagination (Christ - the creative power of God and the wisdom of God - I Corinthians 1:24). Likewise all flesh came from one source, and we know that it is God the Father. The word "Father" means "source" or Foundation or to found. All created things came from, one source "Father". Even a machine that is invented first lurks somewhere within the Imagination of men whether in part or in full, before it is physically manifested. That one source is The Spirit and He alone exists in this life and dwells in all created things and by Him were all things created. That Same Spirit dwells in you and all men as the "I AM"....(he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." ---I John 4:4). Though things may outwardly seem many, but the spirit beneath them all is one and solely dwells in and sustains all life.

It doesnt matter if flesh continues to reproduce and multiply, there is only one Spirit sustaining all and through whom all things consist. There may be trillions of human beings out there and many spiritual forms, but only One Spirit exists and sustains all..."For as the body without the spirit is dead..." (James 2:26).

At the human level, in the flesh the closest you can harness or gain advantage of this one spirit in you, is understanding your human Imagination closely and deeply....for... nothing will be restrained from you, which you have imagined to do." (Genesis 11:6)....only God can be unrestrained, and God is in you as the Christ or as your "I AM" which your human Imagination.

That fact that, that one Spirit is described by numerous names like Jesus, "I am", God, yahweh, almighty... etc does not change its identity or form or give it multiplicity for ...The LORD our God is one LORD:" (Deuteronomy 6:4)...in Him alone is .."One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." (Ephesians 4:5-6).

Back to being born, you have read in John 3, that, that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, remains Spirit. It simply means that one Spirit distributes or extends himself as always into all that which is manifested including all flesh to sustain it, while the flesh has its own reproductive multiplication system like one cell splitting into two. Now to the Flesh, that which is Spirit is intangible like the wind. Though flesh may die out or depreciate, The Spirit is immortal, that is the being that you truly are. It is the immortal you and you will never cease to imagine whether inside or outside the body.

Paul in the 9th Chapter of the book of Romans differentiates between the birth from above (Spiritual birth) and the only Birth that Nicodemus and most scientists know about - the birth by flesh. Paul explains how there are two kinds of descendants to Abraham, i.e. Those resulting from sexual transmutation and those resulting from the promise. Isaac who is of the promise personifies that which is born of The Spirit while Ishmael is that born of flesh which cannot inherit God's kingdom. Paul states that "we are named out of Isaac." Here is his explanation from the RSV Bible,

"But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham just because they are his descendants; but "Through Isaac shall your descendants be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants." (Romans 9:6-8).

To acknowledge that, and establish it as your identity... as your foundation for all things, i.e. that you are a son of God, equally Spirit as your Father is "the awakening" point this is what being born again means, to know that you are The Christ, or that the same Spirit that was in Christ is also in you. That all you need while in this realm is to continously renew your mind and adapt to His mindset..."Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" (Philippians 2:5). That is to truly pray in His name and not in your given earthly identity. You pray as Him....because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17). When you speak as Him, the world responds to Him...that is why you use the Name of Jesus.

Now to the man of Flesh (Carnal Minded man) the characters he reads about in the bible...are just that i.e historical examples from which to draw moral and logical refferences. Numerous verses about certain stories regarding certain individuals are quoted left, right and centre but in truth they do not represent the eternal states of consciousness. Lets examine a few verses.

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Romans 9:13)
...to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:6)
... set before you is life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that ...you... may live:" (Deuteronomy 30:19)
..."See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." (Deuteronomy 32:39).
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7).

At every turn in the bible duality will always be presented in the lives of many bible characters to show you that the bible is actually about you not these characters. That its your biography as you are the operent power of all life's phenomena by virtue of being the Spirit dressed up in the human flesh.

It is okay for you to deny that you are God, because to be man you had to forget who you are so much so that you would easily think you are only human. God became Man that Man might become God. For God to become Man, He had to forget Himself totally and to do that, a deep sleep, involving this dream of life had to be placed upon man, otherwise all men would be like Jesus - born awake. Genesis 1:26 says "...Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... But in strong's concordance (translating hebrew to english) it is supposed to say..."Let us become man and have dominion" but the scholars in those days could not figure out what it meant so they assumed what they wrote saying "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion ...

As much as many have denied it, it is who we are one way or the other...and those who soon learn how to adapt have become established in this "I amness" and are truly able to we'll radiate the glory and love of God and the less destructive they are by ceasing to continously misappropriate and misallocate their Identity and their foundation.

...They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course." (Psalm 82:5). No man knows how to exercise His authority if he is insecure about his Identity or is building on wrong foundation. If you do not know that God dwells in you, how can you do His works or exercise His power? If it is external, it remains so....if its within you it will radiate from inside out.

Throughout the bible, Characters like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elijah, there is only ONE spirit at play and only one story unfolding in all men, and that is the story of - "I AM" personified in many forms and described by these numerous characters.

Great men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elijah are not just individual persons as we are, nor as deemed by tradition or religion. These Bible Characters are but eternal states, representing states of awareness or consciousness in much the same way we understand the state of wealth, poverty, anger, wrath, beauty, peace, war, health e.tc.

These individuals embody the states which they depict with the stories concerning their lives. Each individual personifies a state that happens to be his dwelling place. The stories about these men would not serve any other relevance short of guiding us the "gods" in using the bible to navigate earthly life in this human form, browsing from state to state. Ye are gods; and ALL OF YOU are children of the most High." (Psalm 82:6).

Few of us acknowledge that each man born of a woman has a history prior to being born, only that the details of that story were erased when the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept...(Genesis 2:21)....and to this day no account of Adam being awakened is recorded anywhere in scripture. The lives of these men therefore represent the eternal states of consciousness we all have to go through or navigate through. We either occupy several or all of those states in this lifetime.

One known Character in the Bible who went through almost all these states of consciousness and manifested Man in almost all dimensions is none other than King David. Be it blood, loneliness, adultery, wealth, war, peace, meditation, sonship, parenting and every aspect of life that God would ever want to occupy in the body of a man ....David lived it. Our Journey on earth in these bodies is like the story of the prodigal son. We navigate the states we choose until we finally return into the source.

No wonder God said through David that ...I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my son, today I have begotten you." (Psalms 2:7).

The same words are resonating through every man that is awakening or being born again. To understand that you are spirit and that while you are here on earth in this body, there are various states that you will occupy, good or bad and that those states are embodied in your flesh, through your will power ... Since you are the operent power is what makes you "self-begotten"... I have begotten you today is what the Spirit within you will say.

All eternal states are given tangibility by you as you enter each of them... And the ultimate end of your journey through these states is finally arriving at the State called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the power of God, and the wisdom of God." (1 Corinthians 1:24). That is the final state to embody and personify...and it belongs to the man who believes all he has and is, is all that God has and is ....With men many things are impossible; but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)...yet...all things are possible to the man who believes. " (Mark 9:23). Therefore the man who believes has attained the title of Jesus...He is like God because to both states (The believing Man and God) nothing is impossible...neither to God nor to that man who believes.

So who is the believing man? The awakened one...the one who is born from above....The one who has arrived at the ultimate state...who says I and the Father are one....who knows He is the Christ....the MAN WHO KNOWS HE IS "I AM" ( WHO  IS IN UNION OR ONENESS WITH IAM). This is the kind of belief where nothing is impossible, it is to the man who like Jesus believes Himself to be God...for God is one ...not two. Each of us has been programmed to finally awaken one day as this man...Jesus Christ

So the Characters of the bible are eternal states of consciousness through which you and I and all men...and that, just as we are all destined to die or be separated from flesh, we will all awaken to our I-Amness, we will have to go through these states...passing some or all of them,.. until our Final destination or Climax - Jesus Christ....that is the full formation or the full awakening moment when we return into the Elohim...the compound Name of many intermediaries...many gods...many sons....all summed up as One - the great "I AM"... For "I am" is singular...only ONE. ..

The LORD our God is one LORD;" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

"Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one." (Galatians 3:20).

"You believe that God is one; you do well. .." (James 2:19).

We will all have to climax into Jesus Christ... Every man has his day...a day he is destined to awaken and discover He is God who has been in a dream, to awaken into Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is nothing less than God Himself... to awaken into Oneness...into The Elohim....The summation...The consummation. Every man has been destined to awaken AS GOD. "He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Therefore the birth from above is not of flesh and blood as these cannot enter or even inherit any part of the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21) ...seek first this kingdom ....and get magnetized...attracting the rest (Mathew6:33) To born form above is to discover that you are the life giving Spirit, to awaken as Jesus and his Christ.

Infinite States

Neville 03-22-1968

INFINITE STATES

Quite often someone will say to me: “I don’t think others understand you.” I was asked this question: “When you use the word ‘state’ I don’t think others know what you mean, so would you please explain it?’” Tonight I will try.

We are told: “You are sons of the Most High, ALL OF YOU.” (Not just a few, but all of us). “Nevertheless, you will die like men and FALL”…..into infinite states of consciousness, for states are that into which the sons of the Most High fall.

A state is an attitude of mind, a moment of current experience with a body of beliefs which you live by. These beliefs may be intangible but the physical description of that state will bear witness of those beliefs thereby embodying them. The physical condition of that state merely expresses what you believe.

You can only enter a state by subscribing to it with those inner body of beliefs. What you may be doing may be internal but physical expression soon follows suit...and these choices are freely and always being made with our free will without you being encumbered in any way... Whether knowingly or ignorantly.

And every Man is always expressing a state, by the use of the words: “I am this or that....." . For example "I am poor or I am good... I am fit or I am gonna be sick.... I am known or I am insignificant. I am wanted or I am being avoided.”
There are numberless instances where we peg our "I AMness" to....and I could go on and on ...endlessly about these instances , because these instances are infinite states into which an individual son of the Most High may Fall. As long as you are flesh and blood, born of a woman...you are on a pilgrimage here on earth and you cannot avoid any of these infinite states...because the imagination or your mind is ever browsing through these infinite states. And as a man thinketh in his heart....that is the state he visits and soon expresses....it is the sowing and harvesting pattern of life.

Now, infinites states are both Good and Bad and were all created by God, the being individualized as you. Theologists have made us believe that God is only responsible for only what is Good...and Satan for the bad. Satan is nothing more that your misconception and mishandling of God, he is every doubt you have in you that hinders you from your rightfully and appropriately exercising your "I amNess" ....so I tell all things good or bad were made by God...Good when God is appropriated from within you correctly and properly....bad when when He is mishandled....Just as "I am" is God, you can peg him to evil " and "I am" will be evil or do-evil= devil.

When you spend your energies both mental or otherwise on the devil, he will be personified and come back at you as a demon or demon possessed person ...but somehow he will bounce back to you with the same intensity you focus on him...for he is the son of perdition who feeds on every form of negativity and violence. That is why you focus ought to be on that which is lovely, noble, just, praiseworth, lovely e.t.c because this what personifies and bounces back at you. The verses below say just that; that... Its up to us to wear the right body of beliefs and abide in the "good" states... Here goes the verses.

"....I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. " (Deuteronomy 30:19).

"See now that I, even I, AM He, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is no state out my reach." (Deuteronomy 32:39).

"I form light and create darkness, I make harmonies and create discords. I, GOD, do all these things. " (Isaiah 45:7).

"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." (Philippians 4:8).

It is clear that we enter these states by the way we think or use our Imagination because Christ the Creative Wisdom and Creative Power of God is in you as your very own wonderful Imagination...that is how close you can sense him.

Now, these states are not laid out like traps, waiting to snap you up when you fall into them...but each time your mind or imagination goes in that undesired direction....its like you animate that state into reality...and thus as God individualized, you form light or darkness, harmony or war, murder or healing....you cause these unnumbered states... by what you Imagine or think. These states are like virtual doors or web pages...with your imagination acting like a browser....whatever page you visit....you animate into life.

Blake made this statement: “Eternity Exists and All things in Eternity Independent of Creation which was an act of Mercy. By this it may be seen that I do not consider either the Just or the Wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States of the Sleep which the Soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil.”

When you find yourself in a state or see a seeming other [like your colleague or brother] in a state, do not condemn or praise it, for all states exist and no state is greater than another. Every man is a carrier of the state he is abiding in, and just as every man can walk into any state ...so can he walk out of that state.

Every state is an attitude, a state of experience with a body of beliefs that an individual son of the Most High occupies. And if each of us are an individual son of the Most High, then are we not brothers of the Highest Unity? And are we not also members of the ultimate body who is God the Father? So the states into which we fall cannot mar or in any way deter our immortal self who fell. Just because you have occupied the state of Poverty, doesn't reduce or diminish your divinity as the "I AM" individualized as Man.

Some people are more conscious of their divinity and as a result they seemingly look greater than others outwardly. But inwardly Psalms 82:6 says,, "You are gods, sons of the Most High, ALL OF YOU;" It doesnt matter if you feel that way or deny it....its a fact whether you prefer to stay in your amnesia or to awaken to the truth.

Your creative power did not willingly fall. It was your Father’s will that you, his creative power, descend into and experience these states....In other words you are a prodigal son of a kind...here to experience the lowest levels of consciousness and to do this ...it was necessary that you totally suffer amnesia...forgetting who you are....God individualized as man....and so you are nailed to this body....in the deep sleep of Adam...living as mere man...but you are God....

In Romans 8:20, Paul tells us: "for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope;"

There is unity in God, yet God the Father [Elohim] is made up of gods [Elohims], the sons. So God’s creative power fell into division and passes through states which results in resurrection into unity. As a son of the Most High you can, in the twinkle of an eye, move into any state, but the chances are that, you will not remain there for a state is made up of a body of beliefs, which are so fluid to be permanent! If you spend the day thinking from a certain base, a certain body of beliefs, the chances are you will fall asleep that night in the same belief. Knowing you can move into another state, another body of beliefs, you may try to move, but you must persist in staying in the new state until it becomes natural. Many of the states we abide in...we do so unconsciously....we persist in them mentally....whether they are states we desire or not...but ultimately they soon manifest around us for as a man thinketh in his heart...so must he yeild.

There are unnumbered states and the occupant of one state is not better than the occupant of another....for it is the same being behind that body of believes....wearing that mask we call a body... for each is a brother in the highest unity and all are one in the body of God the Father. But the state, the attitude of mind to which you most constantly return, constitutes your place of abode. If you dwell in self- pity you will express that state continously, .... but by occupying that state you are not less than one who has ambitions to enter the White House, or the Vatican as the Pope. The individual desiring an ambitious state is not greater than or less than the one who doesn’t know he is in a state and remains subjected to it.

How do you get out of a state?...by believing...believing...believing....and believing...All things are possible to him who believes."" (Mark 9:23)... believing is a continous present exercise. So it is through belief! You must believe in the doctrine. You are told in Mark 11:24 that: Whatseover things you desire ... believe that you have received them, and you shall have them"... The precepts of Christ must be accepted literally, for they will be fulfilled literally. Can you believe the precept that believing you have already received your desire will bring it forth in your world? If so, then tonight you can change the things that are happening in your world. And if you can believe and persuade yourself that things are as you want them to be to the point of actually moving into the feeling they are true, they will be felt and seen in your world. You must feel your desires are already realized, that they are already true, for the truth of any concept is known by the feeling of certainty that the thought is true.

Lets say you are not the man (or woman) you want to be, you will know that you are really it by the feeling of certainty it inspires in you, for if you feel certain, you will act upon it. If you don’t act then you are not yet convinced, for God in you is your own wonderful human imagination and God is always acting! You may be physically incapacitated, but you are forever acting in your imagination, ....and Imagination is God, the Father of your life.....God is individualized in you as your Imagination.

By states I mean attitudes of mind. The New Testament begins: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.” The word “repent” means “a radical change of attitude.” Your attitude need not be towards another, but an attitude regarding self. If you feel you have nothing to live for you must repent by changing your attitude radically from that state. Don’t condemn yourself for the state into which you have fallen. If you don’t like it move into another. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, for if you do you will make the state a habit or a habitation and remain there for the rest of your days on earth. Instead, you can believe this doctrine and move out of any state.

Let me illustrate with this story. A gentleman, who attends my lectures, and his wife moved into their new home at the beach. Wanting some landscaping done, they invited five landscape artists to give them bids. Two wouldn’t even bid because of the location of the property but after choosing one, the lawns and gardens as well as several trees were planted. Within six months three trees had died. Now, instead of getting angry and calling the man, demanding the trees be replaced, my friend decided to test his imagination; so while sitting in his car he imagined that he was leaning against the one healthy tree while gazing at the three which had appeared to be dead, but were now healthy and beautiful. Then one day the landscape artist came to the house, inquiring about the garden, especially the trees. It seems his men had used too much nitrogen in the fertilizer, which caused the roots to burn. Upon seeing the trees, he returned the following Tuesday and replaced them free of charge.

This same gentleman shared another experience with me, saying: “On my way to work the other morning I passed a very prominent building and said to myself, “I wonder what it would be like to work there?” Knowing nothing about the company, I played with the idea of them offering me a fantastic salary and even imagined seeing my name on the office door. That very day while at work I received a call from an agency hired to fill the executive positions for the company whose building I had passed, and whose employment I had just imagined. The agency was calling to ask if I would consider working for their client. I was so shocked to realize that the law could work so, instantly but now I know it does!”

You don’t have to remain in a state if you have made a mistake. You can change states morning, noon, and night, but the state to which you most constantly return constitutes your dwelling place. It is from there you are going to live and perpetuate until you move in thought.

As Blake said: “The oak is cut down by the ax and the lamb is slain by the knife, but their eternal form remains forever and reproduces its external form by the seed of contemplative thought.”

The being that you really are, descended to the weakness of the flesh, causing you to experience the state you are now in. Contemplate another state, and the same being who brought your present form into being will restore and make alive the other state, the state desired. This he will continue to do until his purpose is fulfilled. That purpose is to follow a certain pattern back into the unity of being. You see, in the beginning we were drafted. We did not volunteer to fall into these states. We were made subject into futility, not willingly but by the will of him who sent us. We all fell as one Man - Adam...the day he was put into a deep sleep, we all collectively went into a slumber with him and in him ( by the way there is no biblical account of Adam being awakened out of this slumber)...but through the 2nd Adam...each of us has a chance to get out of sleep...out of this Amnesia... And this is a personal decision...we all awaken individually in Jesus Christ.... All of us...."For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Corinthians 15:22). But when we return we will discover that we are the very being who subjected us. We are now the sons, destined to return as God the Father!

Now let me share with you a word that I use night after night. The word is “David” and means “lover; beloved” but specifically “father’s brother.” We are all brothers, yet after my resurrection and return into unity David (father’s brother) called me Father. The day will come when David will call you Father too, for he is [the] father’s brother. We are all brothers of the highest unity, predestined to resurrect into that unity which was broken in our fall into division. So David’s name in the most specific sense is “uncle”. If David is the father’s brother and everyone is a brother in the fall into division, when resurrected into unity David is he who reveals everyone as the Father. Unity was broken for a purpose. God’s creative might descended to experience states in order to become greater than it was prior to the descent. Having unity in thought, creative power fell into division and will be resurrected back into unity of thought once more.

So when I speak of states I am speaking of states of consciousness, attitudes of mind which create a body of belief. My sister and brothers at home do not believe in the same Christ as I do, even though we were all born in the same family and raised in the same environment. My brothers call themselves Christians but their definition of Christ would differ from mine. From their state of consciousness they believe in a man who lived two thousand years ago, yet I would tell you that Christ is God’s creative power and wisdom which descends into states, resurrects, and returns as the being who sent it out. The day will come when you will understand all of these precepts as being literally true. Here is one to be found 1 John, the 3rd chapter, the 2nd verse: “We are now the children of God; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him.” How will we know him? By becoming as he is! The preachers of the world will tell you that when he comes, you will be like him in character, in your attitude towards life. You will be kind and considerate and have his fine qualities, but I tell you: you will be like him who is in the depths of your soul meditating you! This I know from experience.

It was in the year 1936 when I saw the rock that scripture claims as the God who gave me birth. One day while quietly sitting in the silence, a rock suddenly appears before my vision. Then it divides itself and just as quickly reassembles itself into a man seated in the lotus posture, meditating deeply. As I looked closer I discovered I was seeing myself meditating me! And then I knew that when he awoke I wouldn’t vanish, but rather I would know that I am He! This thing called Neville who stands before you is his emanation. He brought it into being, and even if you decided to cut off its head a thousand times he would still restore its eternal form by the seed of contemplative thought.

Nothing ceases to be, because all things exist in eternity and can be brought into being by this meditative being, who looks just like you, individualized as you, except that the being is at a high level consciousness... raised to the nth degree of majesty. You have never seen your face look so beautiful. You have never seen it contain such majestic power, such strength of character. Looking at himself and knowing there is no other, as he glows like the sun you return to the being he is meditating in this world of mortality....this world of form. When you have this experience you will have nothing to do with anyone who claims he or she is Christ. You will let no one deter you, for when you see him you will be just like him. Have you ever seen anyone in this world who is exactly like you? Well...its true that at times your children may resemble you but if you put a picture of one of them beside yours, you would know they were pictures of different people, would you not? No one has the same fingerprints or the same odor as another. But imagine meeting somebody who looks the exact replica of you, physically, characteristically in every regard. When you meet the rock that begot you and the God who gave you birth, you will know him because you will be just like him. You will behold youself in Him and you will feel you are Him....and not feel separate at all.

When you see this being in the depth of your soul you are seeing the one who descended into these states, meditating himself. You are his emanation, his reflection playing the parts he dreams in you. And when he awakes from his descent and begins to ascend, you are He! No two seeds of contemplative thought in the depths of the soul are identical. We are all brothers, and having been subjected, when we return to unity we are God the Father. Now you see who the word “David” means - “the father’s brother.” God the Father is my brother, who one day will rise and, taking me back to the unity of being, he will call me Father. That is David! That is the play! That is the mystery of life!

Now to come back to the beginning. Everything is a state. You can be any man, any woman that you want to be when you understand the mystery of states. A state is simply an attitude of mind, a body of belief, a phase of experience. Now, don’t be like the moon, which changes from a quarter, to a half, to three quarters, to full - or round like the earth, which repeats itself over and over again season after season. Have you ever noticed that at certain times of the year, the same set of circumstances happen to you? Every year it is always very hot when it is time for your vacation or you are always broke around Christmas? Or that when you eat strawberries you always break out in a rash? All of these are patterns created in the world of states in which we all live.

There are infinite states and combinations of states into which God, your own wonderful human imagination, falls. Fortunately there is a limit, which comes when infinite mercy (who is within you) steps beyond and awakens himself; and as he does, you - the one he put through the torment - awaken, enhanced by the descent into these states. And as one you return, bringing your gifts which are the result of your experiences traveling through these states. You bring your talents, of which the greatest is the art of forgiveness, the ability to enter into and partake of the opposite. When you see someone in despair can you represent him to yourself as he would like to be seen? And can you persuade yourself that what you see is real? To the degree that you are self-persuaded he will become that man. Then you will have conquered by forgiveness! You will have taken him out of one state and placed him in another.

Now, every act of kindness is a death in the divine image for in every act you sacrifice yourself. Making alive what you no longer want to see, you die to that and live in what you want to see, so every kindness to another is a death in the divine image. By representing others to myself and persuading myself that they are as I would like them to be, to the degree that I am self-persuaded they will become it, and as they do I die to what I formerly made alive. I lived in what I thought them to be, and then I died to that thought. I did it deliberately so I laid it down myself! I have the power to lay it down and the power to pick it up again. I purposely laid my life down to what I saw and lifted it up to what I wanted to see, thereby resurrecting another (who is myself) into a new state. How often must I do it? Seventy times seven or as long as it takes me to convince myself that it is true. When I lay down my life for another he is my brother, for we have the same Father. As brothers we fall into states and resurrect ourselves into the unity of the Father!

So the greatest talent, the greatest challenge to overcome, is the art of forgiveness. By forgiveness I do not mean a verbal agreement, leaving the memory of what was forgiven. To completely forgive I must completely forget the event. No matter what was said, if you forgive me you can’t even remember what I did or said. Only willing to see what you want to see, if you persuade yourself that you are now what you want to be, you have forgotten what you were before. That’s forgiveness.

True forgiveness is complete forgetfulness. Blake tells us: “The art of living is forgetting and forgiving.” If you don’t completely forgive you cannot forget, for to forgive is to change your attitude towards another, and as you change you forget what they said or did, thereby no longer keeping them in the state that compels them to do what they did! While in a state, man must play the part the state dictates, and man must play every part. God in his infinite mercy has hidden from us the parts we have played, because the shock would be too great if we were to see the horrors that we have committed as we passed through all these states. None of us can recollect all those moments in the heat of anger we have wished certain catastrophes happened to those who angered us...these are seeds whose harvest we are so fond of denying. You see, when you fall into a state you can’t help but act from that premise, and you can fall into any state!

I am not telling you that one state is right and another wrong. I am simply asking you to judge all states with love....therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.... If you are ever in doubt always do the loving thing. Then you will know you are doing the right thing. If someone comes to you and tells you they want a job, don’t ask him how he lost his previous job; simply hear him tell you he now has a wonderful job. Do that and you have taken him out of the state of unemployment and placed him in the state of the gainfully employed.

I urge you to use your own wonderful creative power and deliberately move into the state of your choice. Make it now by occupying the state long enough so that it feels natural. Haven’t you had a suit of clothes that felt so new you were conscious of them every moment? I know when I bought my first suit I walked down Fifth Avenue thinking everyone I passed knew my suit was new. People passing paid no attention to me, but I was so aware, so conscious of my new suit. That’s exactly what happens when you move into a new state. If the state of affluence is new, you think everyone knows it, but no one knows or cares whether you are rich or poor, so walk in the state until it becomes natural. The moment the feeling is natural, wealth is yours!

I paid thirty dollars for my first suit. Today a suit will cost me $200.00, but regardless of the cost, when the suit is new I am aware of it. But let me wear it long enough for it to feel natural and I will no longer be conscious of it. The same is true for a state. You may desire the state of fame. If you will think you are famous and remain conscious of the state long enough to make it natural, as the thoughts flow from you they become a natural part of your body of beliefs, and the world will proclaim your fame.



Now let us go into the silence.

The Book of Job Explained by Neville

Tonight we will speak on the Book of Job, possibly the most misquoted book in the world. I dare say all day long passages from this book are quoted, without the knowledge that the book of Job is being done a lot of injustice. For no one knows who wrote the book. It bears the title of its hero, as do so many books of the Bible: the Book of Joshua, Nehemiah, Ezra, Daniel, Ruth – so many bear the name of the hero of the volume. That is the Book of Job for you. The word “Job,” so claim the famous scholars, by analysis means: “Where is my father?” You and I have heard it as “the persecuted one,” but the central point of the narrative is that Job was completely innocent – not guilty of any offense, but simply the victim of the cruelest experiment by God. The very last chapter reveals that it was all by God. Some scholar along the way, or some scribe, inserted some little story in the first chapter which is suspect, because they couldn’t believe that God could do that to any man. So they claim that a pact was made between Satan and God, and God allowed Satan to do it: Satan the accuser, Satan the doubter. But Satan disappears in the very first chapter and never reappears. He does in the second chapter just for a moment, but he doesn’t in the forty-two chapters thereafter, not even in the epilogue. And so we know that this cruel experiment on Man was by none other than God.

Do not read the story of Job as another story, The bible is your biography, full of hidden allegories, waiting to be sought out and unravelled, that you may resurrect as God from manhood. Now, understand that you are Job, I am Job, the world is Job – the world of humanity. And to approach it as if it were an object lesson in patience – patience under stress, under trial – is to go astray at the very start. That is not the purpose of the story. I hope I can get it over to you as I see it. If I were to place it in the Bible, I would place it at the very end of the Old Testament, for it seems to lead right into the revelation of the New Testament. But I am neither rewriting the Bible nor rearranging it – but were I to place it, that is where I would put it. It simply leads right into the unfolding of the vision as we find it in the gospels and the epistles.

First, if you are not familiar with it, let me just tell you a few of the highlights of Job. The scene is laid in Edom and all the characters are Edomites, renowned for their ancient wisdom, semi-nomads. Job, as the story tells us, was an upright and very rich Arab sheikh, owning thousands of sheep, thousands of camels, hundreds of she-asses and oxen, numbers of servants and ten children – seven sons and three perfectly beautiful daughters, So we are told in the story. It’s a prologue to tell us this much of the great hero who was Job.

Then come the four woes, based upon the pact between Satan and Yahweh. The first one comes in and announces the fact that the Sabeans came suddenly and slaughtered all the servants who were taking care of the sheep and took away all the sheep. While he was yet speaking, the second woe appeared and he said that they took away all the camels and slaughtered all the servants. Then comes the third woe: they took away all the oxen, the she-asses, and slaughtered all the servants. Then comes the fourth woe, that his children –all of them –were dining in the house of the oldest son, and while they were all together there came this mighty wind that crushed all the four corners and the house caved in and they were all killed, and he the message bearer was the only one who escaped to come and bring the news to Job ehh!! This is beyond misfortune.

And Job rent his robe, shaved his head, threw himself upon the floor, and then said: “Naked I came into the world, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return.” Then he blamed himself – not for the act, but for having said: “Naked I came into the world and naked I shall return.” He saw nothing to condemn in God, and so he did not see anything wrong that God had done.

And then, after the four woes, and everything is taken from him – all his peripherals i.e all his children, all his possessions, everything around him, the dude is left alone – then starts the physical destruction of the man himself, and it started with boils. And that’s when Satan disappears from the scene and all these things followed one after the other – the boils from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head. And then his wife said to him: “Are you still going to be honest about it? Your integrity is unshaken? Curse God and die.” And he said to her: “You have spoken like a foolish woman. Shall God who gave us the good not give us the evil?” And so nothing came from his lips that could in any way induce any form of condemnation from God.

Then there came his comforters. They’re spoken of as “Job’s comforters.” There were three friends. They came to comfort Job. They heard of his plight. Heard how he'd lost everything, being the richest sheikh in all of Edom, and they couldn’t recognize him, he was such a horrible-looking creature, a far cry from his former self. When they saw him, they too rent their robes and sat with him for five days and five nights without speaking in silent mourning for their friend. Job breaks the silence stating, that the very day of his birth should disappear from the calendar year. “Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night which said a male boy is conceived.” And then he has this tirade against being brought into this world. He didn’t ask to be brought, he was brought. And he finds himself now without any guilt and all these things happening to him. And after he makes the terrific defence of himself, then comes the first comforter, who doesn’t comfort at all.

This is because he is trained – as Job was trained, as you and I are trained – to believe in divine justice. So we all believe in divine justice, in retribution. For we look at a person like a Hitler, who lived to the very last moment in his fifteen gloating years; or a Stalin, for his thirty-odd years – how they slaughtered millions. And what happened to Stalin? He died the same way you will die, same way I will die – the fella dies of a little brain haemorrhage and in no time he was unconscious, but that was after slaughtering millions of human beings. So where is the retribution? Because Man always wants retribution. Where is Stalin’s retribution, where is Hitler’s retribution, where is any tyrant’s retribution? They live just as we live – they live on the fat of the land, murdering unnumbered millions, and they simply die as we die. And so priesthoods will tell us they will have their day. God will punish them beyond the grave – or in some future embodiment, if you believe in reincarnation. How could you live and how long would you have to live to repay the debt of thirteen million, when you burned them alive and you slaughtered them – how long would you live?

And so they bring argument after argument after argument to persuade Job that he, in some way must have violated this code. Maybe in his youth, maybe in the past – and he can’t think of what he has done. Maybe as a child, said he, some little infraction. But this is far beyond the proportion of anything I could have done, this so called judgment of God...overpaying for what? What has he done to me now? This far transcends anything that any just judge would place upon me for anything I might have done in my youth. They still try to persuade him. And so, as the Father said: “Even- handed" is the justice of God. Even-handed.”

Then come the three comforters – who aren’t comforters at all, like alll our friends often are. May I tell you: may you not have something physically wrong with you after having confessed you believe what I talk about. May you never be financially embarrassed after having once gone out on a limb and confessed to everyone you believe it. They will come like this Uriah Heap, and all will lament. “It shouldn’t happen to you,” they will say, “certainly not to you.

You mean you who know that the states are real and all you need to do is to get into a state and the state blossoms into your world – and you?”

These are the comforters of Job. And so they come to comfort Job.

And he said: “Merciful comforters you are, and so were I in your soul rather than in my soul I would not say to you what you said to me.” But they persisted. Each had three chances to deflate him and each time that they tried he comes back with a direct answer. But he is so self-righteous. He showed all the things he did: he never turned away any infant, any fatherless child, any widow, and any stranger from comfort, from shelter, from food. He was fabulously wealthy, but he never once turned away anyone in need. And he itemizes them all, all the way down. But he never understood what I hope you understand – which comes in the flower called the New Testament of “grace” – that no one in this world can construct a direct passage to God. You can’t be good enough to earn coming into the presence of God – no man in the world can. It comes by “grace,” this strange elective love. And he calls us one by one. So he did not know there is no such thing in this world as divine justice. He didn’t know it. The fathers didn’t teach that. And they still – in all the contemporary churches, the orthodoxy the world over – they teach and preach divine justice and retribution. And it isn’t. There is no such thing as grace!

My child – were I the father of one born demented, where not only the child but the mother suffers, I suffer, the brothers suffer, and the whole vast circle suffered – then should I suffer because of it? And that is divine justice? And you try to justify it by telling me that in some past embodiment he did this, that, and the other; that is why he is; and we were related in some strange way in the past and that is why today we all have fallen into the same net?

Well all this is adressed in the new testament, when a similar question arose and the answer by Jesus, helps us answer, this divine Justice and retribution perception that the entire world feeds off. The answer is in the 9th [chapter] of John: it says there And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The answer given: Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." (John 9:2-3).” No retribution whatsoever. There is something entirely different: that God as we now see him is the God of grace, the God of mercy. Were I pure I would never know that there was such a thing as a God of mercy. And God has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all of them [Romans 11:32] that not one can crow and boast of his own purity.

So, to the very end Job is still giving arguments of his own self-righteousness – how good he is, how kind he has been, and all these things – that this thing should not have happened to him. And that’s Job’s argument, while all these so-called comforters are still lauding it on him. And then at the very end he is demanding that God will appear. He wants to meet God, to confront him. He says: “I know he will slay me, I have no hope, but I will present my case to his face.” And then he makes this statement: “This shall be my salvation. For the godless shall not stand before him, and so if I can so persuade him to see me, to present my case, then I stand before him, and only the pure in heart can stand before him. So if I stand before him, that is my salvation.”

To the very end of the story, he still insisted on justifying himself. He never heard of the great story of vicarious suffering, never heard of it. Or the author of the book never heard of it, for Job didn’t write it. He is simply the hero of the narrative, of the story. So the very end, by demanding that you listen to my case, how righteous I am (he still believes – although it is not stated – he still believes in retribution and is demanding by his own self-righteousness that a verdict be brought in his favor because he is self-righteous) he feels he should be acquitted, that this thing should not go on as it has gone on for so long in his life. So you see: he has not yet abandoned the belief in retribution, though he denies it when the friends argue the point of retribution. The friends try to prove to him that he was wrong at some time in the past, because there is such a thing as divine justice, and therefore he could not possibly have these sores, and lose his kingdom, lose his family, lose everything – were it not that at some time he had earned this judgment.

And so he brings in his righteousness. And then comes the voice of God. For the first time God speaks. God refuses to answer all the other arguments brought by Job's men. He refuses to answer the arguments and requests of Job. Job is fuming in his own self-righteousness, for in hell the only voice is the voice of self-righteousness. In heaven all is forgiven and the voice of heaven is complete forgiveness – complete forgiveness no matter what a man has ever done. In heaven the voice is complete forgiveness. In hell all is self-righteousness. He was in hell though he was walking on earth, as we all are in a hell of sorts if we are filled with this self-righteousness and self justification.

Then God answers him out of the whirlwind. And may I tell you: it is a perfect expression: the “whirlwind.” That is how he comes. When he comes, he comes through the medium of a whirlwind. You hear it and you feel it and you think it is the most frightening storm you have ever encountered, that any man could experience. When you hear it and you feel it, you’ll know by the wind it’s the whirlwind, then God is about to speak. Either you hear the words or you have the scene, and it begins to unfold the most fantastic vision, more real than this room now – when you hear the voice of the whirlwind. So God answered Job out of the whirlwind and he asked all the questions concerning creation, for Imagination is creation, and creation brings forth reality, therefore imagination creates reality.

Where were you [where was your self righteousness] when I created the universe [when you thought yourself into this mess]? He asked one question after the other, all pertaining to creativity [imagination creates reality], and Job couldn't answer. And then God shows himself, he displays himself.

In the 42nd chapter he now repents and covers himself in ash when he sees how audacious he had been in the past demanding that God answer him. Then he said: “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see thee.”

His religion, like all our religions before the experience, was inherited. The oral traditions of the fathers and churches. And then I heard it, I didn’t experience it, I only heard it. Mother told me and took me to church, and the minister or the rabbi told me – and so I heard it from seeming authority and so my religion was inherited. Thus I expected to find a different kind of a God – a God that man made in his own image down here, a "God" that he called a just "God" – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I couldn’t conceive of another kind of a "God" – one of infinite love, where there is grace, that it doesn’t matter what a man has ever done in this world – no, not even a Hitler or a Stalin. In whom everything in the world would be forgiven. “Though your sins be like scarlet they shall be white as snow.” “And so I heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.”

Now Job turns to his friends, and Yahweh calls the friends and he tells them to sacrifice, because: “You lied about me. Everything you said of me was false and what Job said about me was true.” Job’s rebellion was against orthodoxy. His rebellion was against all ecclesiasticism, all rituals that said this is the way to God. He did them all, yet he suffered. He kept every law of the ancient church: he sacrificed, he did everything – and yet in the end he suffered as no man has suffered. And he knew it wasn’t true. So he commended Job, for what he said of Yahweh was true, and what the righteous ones said of Yahweh was false. He made them sacrifice and told them to go to Job and ask Job to pray for them. If Job would pray for them, then they would be set free – it would depend upon Job. And Job prayed for his friends and his own captivity was lifted.

Now that is where you come in: to completely forget yourselves in the love of a friend who is in need. Without raising a finger, you lift him mentally out of one state and put him into another. No matter what he has been in the past, forget it and put him in another. He was only expressing in a state, he was never the state
that he expressed. We condemned him thinking he was the state, but Job prayed for his friends, lifting them out of that state of self-righteousness and divine justice, and he saw them in the state of grace. It doesn’t matter what they have ever done in the past. It is now what he sees them to be – and at that moment Job’s captivity was lifted. And so the whole thing hinged upon man’s ability to forgive. This story of a glorious man descending down to this terrible predicament, and becoming totally wretched, but in that state of wretchedness being able to set so called "righteous and Justified men" free; is what Jesus did for you and me, drawing us out of that state of self righteousness into grace, the undeserved favor of God; while He was on the cross. Where sin abounds as we see in Job, much more grace abounds, as its Job who sets the "normal" men free.

"There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus?"I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Silo'am fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."" (Luke 13:1-5).

We are told in the 13th [chapter] of Luke, when they came to him and said Pilate slaughtered the Galileans and mingled their blood with their sacrifices, he said to them: “Do you think that they were worse sinners than those who escaped? I tell you: no. Unless you repent you shall meet a like fate. Do you think that when the tower fell in Jerusalem and crushed eighteen that they were greater offenders than those it did not crush? I tell you: no. But unless you repent you shall meet a similar fate.”

So when you hear someone is hurt, don’t gloat that God is getting even, that they have received their retribution. God doesn’t get even. If you hear of anyone being hurt tonight, don’t gloat: “It serves him right.” No retribution at all, not in this revelation. We end up where are because we thought our selves there, whether we remember or not. You are the cause. That you escaped the hurt does not make you better, unless you have raised your imagination to higher and nobler things such as whatsoever is lovely, praiseworthy, noble, of good report e.t.c... Of spirtual mindedness and godliness.

In simple terms, a man unknowingly falls into a state; falling into a state it could be a good state or an evil state, but he reaps the fruit of the state thereoff. He is neither good nor evil. Until you understand that you are a free flowing King, whichever state or country you choose to sit on their throne, the people and systems of that state will serve you diligently without fear or favour, and their service will be seen in your harvest. That is why it is important to guard your heart, guard your imaginations and your words, for this is how we flow freely from one state to the other. So Blake said: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States which the Soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil when it leaves Paradise following the Serpent.” Who’s that serpent? God himself! For he consigned me, consigned you, every being in the world, to disobedience, and we left through
disobedience, for he stated: “You shall not surely die.” And who told me that? The serpent, and who is the serpent? Just a symbol of God himself.

So he told me I wouldn’t die after first telling me if I ate a certain thing, did a certain thing, I would die. Then he tells me I will not really die, but my eyes will open and I will become as wise as the gods. And so he enticed me into disobeying him and so I left the state of innocence for a world of experience where I fall headlong into different states. After unnumbered experiences falling into states and redeeming myself from these states, he redeems me from it all and lifts me into a world completely subject to my imaginative power, where I completely awake. Here, I am in a state of sleep, so I don’t know I am in a state and I think this is my very being.

Blake made the statement: “Do not let yourself be intimidated by the horrors of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Seek this path and you will attain from your own Soul an even deeper perception of the eternal beauty of creation. You will attain an ever increasing release from that which now seems so sad and terrible.” Not a thing to be judged in this world, not a thing to be condemned, only to be redeemed. So you and I play the part of redeeming individuals here, and at that moment of God’s own good grace he lifts us out of the whole vast world of states. But until then we
can redeem each other. You don’t feel well? All right, I will persuade myself you have never felt better. I’ll persuade myself you never felt better and to the degree I am persuaded I am pulling you out of one state into another. I have to seek to falsify the record I have of you, and replace with an Image of a "fit-like-a-fiddle" you . Don’t try to pinpoint why he is not feeling well. It’s a state. Don’t try to pinpoint it and say it serves him right, I knew he was no good. What you see in others indicates what you see in yourself, so if he was "no-good", it started by defining "no-good" within you and you are so condemned about it that you cause it in another. Forget that and learn to administer forgiveness upon yourself, that you may be free and see that freedom in others, and ultimately falsify the entire record about your friend! The being that was never any good at a certain time, you pull him out of that state
into another, so that though his sins are like scarlet, because of you they become white as snow - that is falsifcation -Justification.

And then you keep on redeeming people, one after the other. Regardless of how many times you fail, try it anyway and you pull them out. Then one day when you least expect it, God will reveal himself to you and you will say: “I have heard of you. I really didn’t know you existed. I believed and hoped you did, but I heard of you with the hearing of the ear – that is, the oral tradition. My teacher in school talked about you, and my father, the churches – all the people who believed in you talked about you, but now my very own imaginative eyes see you vivdly.” It doesn’t matter what the whole vast world will say. I see something entirely different. You are not at all what they told me you were. You are
not a judge. There is no such thing as righteous judgment with you, no divine justice – only grace.
“The law came through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” So, now I see. I don’t have to be taught any more who you are. I see you. And then, may I tell you, he is going to embrace you, because when he asks you, he answers in you.

Now, what do I mean by vicarious suffering (mentioned earlier)? In the english dictionary vi·car·i·ous is an Adjective and it means Experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person: for example you sleep in a lodge and then you hear the sound of lovemaking, and hear the lady moan with pleasure, but it affects you so intensely as though it is you making love to her, so much so that you discover that you are compelled to ejaculate in your pants ...that is the closest example of " vicarious pleasure", why..the action is being done by another but the pleasure is affecting you who is not in the action. It is also Acting or done for another : " a vicarious atonement" that Jesus suffered on the cross and paid the full payment of all sin, and we who believe have this vicarious advantage of paying fully by atoning for the sin as though we too were crucified and rose with Him -"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20). .Vicarious is the most difficult concept in the world for man to grasp. Every time I have used it with someone who at the moment suffered, I invariably got the same reply. Someone said to me recently in San Francisco: “I am suffering. You said God suffers for me?
Well, maybe he is suffering somewhere in eternity but I am in pain, I am suffering.” I said: “What is his name?” “God” “No, that is not his name. His name is ‘I AM.’ Who is suffering?” “Well, I am. “ “Good, that’s God.” “No God here, I am suffering.”

It’s the most impossible thing to get over to man, that man who seems to be alive, is alive only by reason of the fact that God became him – that God became man, that man would become God. He sunk himself in man, that man could say: “I am,” for that is God’s name, and that all things are done by God to God, to individualize you, me, all of us. When in his eyes the work is done, after unnumbered ages of pain – it takes pain like putting gold in the raw state of ore into the furnace and bringing out molten gold, pure gold, nothing but pure gold. It takes heat, it takes fire. These are the furnaces of experience, and we are put into the world of experiences and brought out as pure gold. When we are brought out, in his presence we are just like him.

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:1-2).

For we become what we behold - we become what we contemplate. I must behold it to become it.

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding[contemplating] the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." (II Corinthians 3:18).

So, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear but now my eye sees thee.” And as you see him you are stamped with the image of eternity. You are one with him, one with God, as God. It is he – doing it in you, in man, and when he has completed the task, we are told: “He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He will bring it to completion. He initiated it and he will complete it.
He took eternity and put it into this clay that is man, that is himself, and he works upon it, brings it out, and individualizes you. You become one like the being that created you.

That is the story of Job. It is the most glorious story, but I think if not the most misunderstood, it is not far from it. You and I have quoted it and we have misquoted it. We speak of the patience of Job - which is none other than the lonsuffering of Jesus typified in the Gospel of Mark as the Ox face on the Cherubim. We take patience from this story but there was no patience of Job – he rebelled. We start from the very third chapter and it is a rebellion, and there are only forty-two chapters. The first is only an introduction, the prologue, and it starts in the second part of the second chapter where the prologue comes to an end. By then the four woes have been accomplished. The whole kingdom and his family are gone. Then come the sores on himself. The boils appear suddenly on the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Now you find rebellion: “Let this day perish wherein I was born and
the night that said a man, a male child, is conceived. Let it be so hidden that God cannot even find this day.”

Job doesn’t stop the rebellion until he hears the voice of Yahweh out of the whirlwind. That comes at the end of the great narrative. Then he repents. He repents and sees Him, for the first time really sees Him – a God of grace, a God of love. He sees why he went through what he did. It was his own voice in hell of
self-righteousness.

If I can this night reflect upon any good thing I think was good that I did, that is self-righteousness. It doesn’t earn me one little step towards where I am going. Do something because you want to do it, but to feel you
are adding up and putting something in the bank for yourself – forget it. And so he was so good, he was so self-righteous, he never once turned anyone away from his place, no widows, no fatherless, no strangers. And he always abided by the law. He made all the sacrifices designated by the law. At the end of this special feast, Job not knowing what might have happened in the home of the individual brothers where the feast met today, each in a different home – he went and he sacrificed generously, that should they in any way have violated even in their inner will that which Yahweh designated, then he by his sacrifice would atone for them. So he atoned for his sins. He did everything that the law demanded. But still he broke out in all the boils and then he learned that you can’t be good enough to earn God’s gift. Self-righteousness is only the voice in hell. So you were right, Job: there is no such thing as divine justice, no retribution at all, none.

Did he not say: “O the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in their hands is my indignation”? [Is. 10:5] So I will use him, for I have made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Even Judas[Praise] have I divinely purposed.

And so, just as I have planned it so shall it be, as I have purposed so shall it stand. I will not turn back – “[The anger of] the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly.” (Jeremiah 23:20) Only in the latter days will he reveal himself. You will see that all the sufferings that you went through, the God of love put you through. Just like the great
artists who are putting ore through the heat to extract the gold, he wasn’t concerned about the heat, just extracting pure gold for his labor, for his work – any more than the great sculptor is concerned about the clay. And Job said: “You made me of clay, are you going to return me to the dust?” What does the potter think of the clay when he puts it through every form to fulfill his purpose or what he purposes for it? He isn’t
concerned. So you and I are the clay in the potter’s hand and he is bringing us out into his own image.

I heard someone gloat in NYC when these lovely little children, in their early twenties and teens, on the eightieth-odd floor of the Empire State Building, and this plane came too low. He was simply showing off because they were warned time and again not to fly over NYC low, and here was this 102-story building plus this enormous antenna that goes way beyond that, and the chap coming through with one aboard, and two passengers that were not supposed to be there, showing what he could do, and he couldn’t maneuver the plane. He went right into that building and he snuffed out the lives of something like thirty-four or forty young girls in a Catholic charity. And if someone, like this one who spoke to me, is anti-Catholic, he would then say that is what God did. Well you have to be silent, because they express complete stupidity. What can you do? If my daughter were among them and he said it, chances are he would be in the hospital. He could judge that God did that because he was against this charity work of some Catholic. These sweet little children, all Catholic, work in the organization (or maybe they were not all Catholic). And he dared to say
that. They could have been a Jewish organization and some anti-Jew would have said the same thing, etc.

Here, this is the story of Job. There is no such thing as divine justice. We are all coming out, and when we all come to the end we will all see it and then we will understand. But don’t tell me the six million Jews who were walked right into the furnaces of Germany, that that was divine justice. Job didn’t see it, or the author of the book didn’t see it. They did not understand the mystery of vicarious suffering, because the Father said it and then the three friends who came, they echoed it, and then he said, “Nonsense, it’s a lie.” That’s what Job said.

But still in the last confession in the end when he rehearsed all of his good qualities, all of his virtues, expecting to be exonerated by this rehearsal of virtues, that surely an acquittal must be brought in that must be the only verdict that could be brought in. That was his last soliloquy. And then comes the voice and then he realizes
that all the so-called good things that he did don’t mean a thing in the eyes of God. God started it and God is going to complete it and God is working us into the image of himself. He has to put us through these experiences, but he has laid the foundation of infinite states. So when you see someone who is unlovely in the world by his actions, he is only expressing a state into which he has fallen, and chances are unwittingly. Not deliberately, but unknowingly and he has to occupy it while he is in it and then because he is alive he simply radiates it, it grows and bears the fruit of itself. So know that you can forgive every being by simply pulling him out. This is the supreme test of one’s ability to forgive. To identify the one you would forgive with the ideal that so far he has failed to express. To the degree that you can become self-persuaded that he is that ideal, to that degree he will express it, and then you deliver him, you save him – you forgive him by putting him into another state altogether.
Job didn’t see that. Job thought if he gave out things and was kind and generous that he would have played his part, that he would be justified and remain pure before God – but little did he know that actually he had nothing to change them and to transform their lives. The orphan who came begging would remain an orphan without a consciousness of the True Father , the widow remains the widow without the consciousness of her true husband, for the bible says the Lord your Maker is your Husband, in Isaiah 54:5 and they all remained as they were. This is to those who follow Jesus for the hand outs, for the bread, and are unconscious of the Spirit within. Same applies to those who remain in the custody of the Pastors, to maintain healing and deliverence, not knowing that Christ within is the hope of Glory, and just as he dwells in any pastor so does He in you.

And so they were fed from this generous table of Job, but all remained what they were before they were fed. Don’t let anyone remain what he was after you see his need. You see him differently — pull him out of his state and put
him in another. Poor man, it is so easy to put your hand in your pocket and say: “Here’s a dollar.” It’s so easy, but to see him gainfully employed and to persuade yourself that he is, that he really doesn’t need that dollar, is difficult. If you give him the dollar, like Job you will recount your virtues: the day you once gave a man a dollar — he didn’t earn it, you gave it. So He said: I the Lord, who gave from his hand the good, also
gave the evil. Who gave it? And so I say: you can forgive forever.

It’s fun giving, but it’s far better if you still give to him by transforming him in your mind’s eye and see him not in need. If men were not in need, what a balloon would be broken, starting with our government. Just imagine if they were not in need, for then their own claims to us, across the face of our country, and on radio and TV,
how generous they are because they are giving balloons away. So, suppose we were not in need of balloons, what deflation of balloon personalities! If you meet someone on the street that really is in need of your dollar, switch it around that they are not in need of any of your dollars. And now you have the power, greater than the dollar, to take them from where they are and put them where they would like to be, in your mind’s eye.

And now, in closing, when you read the book in the future, see the whole drama taking place in the mind of Job. It didn’t take place between three friends and the fourth one who was brought in and Yahweh and all the others. The whole thing takes place in Job. This argument portrays Job himself as the accuser and the
accused. So as you read it in the future, see only one being playing all the parts, and it is Job – you – and he is in conflict with himself, and at the very end he is integrated. He is torn apart between the one accusing him and the one defending his rights, but suddenly he becomes an integrated soul. At that moment of complete
integration where there is no one but himself, he finds God. For God becomes him that he may become God, who is sunk in us. The confusion goes on until finally there is no other to whom we can turn.

The whole thing was contained within us, and at that moment of perfection he appears seemingly coming from without. He doesn’t come from without at all, for when you look at him he looks just like you, and so you see, he really isn’t coming from without. He appears to, but really he is coming from within and gives the appearance of coming from without that you may see what you look like. “I have heard of thee with the
hearing of the ear, but now my eyes have seen Thee.”

Now let us go into the silence.

Question & Answer Period

Q. What would have happened to Job if he had not prayed for his friends?

A. Then he would not have known concerning the state. He would not have known he was only in a state at any moment of time when he was complaining. He could deliver those from their state, but it wasn’t Yahweh who did the praying. Yahweh said to them: “Ask Job to pray for you.” So who is Yahweh? As Blake said: “When Jesus Christ arose from the dead he became Yahweh.”

See the Bible through the eyes of Blake. In Blake’s engravings, when the left foot is forward, he uses the devil. And in the state of love it becomes a man, but the foot becomes a cloven hoof. When God is speaking in the most marvellous way, the right foot is forward; the other place, the left foot is forward. The left foot is the state which is doubt. So the symbolism is perfect with Blake in his illustration. But for sheer beauty of English, read the book. What English! Carlyle said it is the greatest piece of literature of all time. Tennyson said of it: “It is the greatest poem ever written.” Luther – who gave us a great religion when he broke away at the beginning of the reformation – claims it is the most magnificent book of all scripture. So, he makes extravagant claims for the Book of Job. But for sheer beauty of English read the book. You are Job. I am Job, and when you ask these things: “Why did it happen to me?” – not only physical things but the loss of a friend, loss of a child. What is more heart-breaking than a Father who has raised a child and loved that child, and hopes he will transcend him in time, and will leave an estate for him – to go to the graveside and bury him? And he buries him, the same way Job lost his estate, lost everything, and his ten children all snuffed out.

But the play is taking place in him. In the very last chapter, not only they all came in the very end after he was redeemed – his brothers and sisters, all of his friends of old came to sympathize and to comfort him for the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. His seven sons and his three daughters were there, yet in the first chapter they were dead. In the last chapter they were there.

He lived 140 years. Every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value and symbolical name. In symbolism, 100 has the letter “qoph” [pron. "koof"] – “the back of the head.” The hundred is simply this, and forty is “mem” whose symbolical value is “womb.” So, here is the womb where he lived (the back of the head). In the back of the head this womb becomes man’s tomb. It infers that man is actually buried but doesn’t know it, and one day he will awake. He will awake within himself to find he is entombed. He never knew before that he was entombed; he thought he was walking the earth. He didn’t realize all this was like a dream unfolding, until one day he awakes and the tomb is his own skull. Mem-Qoph. Here is the mem and here is the forty, the womb. It is here that he is begotten by God himself. And so he lived 140 years.
Qoph-Mem.