Who Are The Condemned?, Vortrag
Vortrag: Who Are The Condemned? / Wer sind die Verurteilten?
Vortrag von Neville Goddard am 10.03.1964
Englisch: Who Are The Condemned?
Tonight’s subject is “Who are the Condemned?” We’re told in the Book of John that “God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). And then it goes on to tell us, “He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe in him is condemned already, because he does not believe in the name of the only Son of God.” So here we see it starts, the whole thing starts with believing in him. Everything follows that, just believing in him. Well, who is this presence that I must believe in?
There are a billion Christians in the world and they all will claim if you ask the question, “Do you believe in him” and you told them you meant by “him” Jesus Christ, they would say yes. One billion would say yes. But I am quite sure they do not really believe in him—not the “him” of the one I speak, not Christ. And I am speaking with a certain authority, because I’ve been sent to tell you. No man gave it to me; I’m not ordained; no man gave me anything to tell you. God himself sent me, and tell it I must and will even at the risk of many thinking that I am mad. But I’ll tell you who this presence is, and if you believe in him you’ll be saved from any situation in this world…if you believe in him.
Well, let us now see who is this presence? Can we get it from scripture? In the Book of John, one is supposed to be speaking, and this is the one speaking, and you might think it’s a man outside of yourself speaking to you if you were addressed. He said, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he” (John 8:23,24). When you read it, to get the depth from it, this must take place in you. It’s a conversation between the rational mind, addressed as “you are from below,” and that which is above the conceptual mind, the presence defined as I AM. It’s something entirely beyond the reasoning mind that is controlled by the senses, the conceptual mind.
So this drama takes place; this dialogue is within man. And so, “I told you, you will die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” Well, do you believe in that presence? Do you really believe that the Christ of scripture is your own wonderful human Imagination, your own wonderful I-am-ness? If you don’t, you are already self-condemned. No one condemns you. He said, “Who condemns you?” “No one, Lord, no man, Lord.” He said, “Neither do I condemn you.” If no man is condemning you, then I can’t condemn you, for the simple reason man only bears witness of your own self-condemnation or your freedom. When men point the finger, it is because you have pointed the finger at yourself. And you do not know who he is, and so one is sent to tell you who he really is.
When you read these words “I am he” at the end of that sentence—“unless you believe that I am he”—here we have a cryptic formula that recalls Exodus 3:14, “When you go to them, just say to them I AM has sent you.” Then we turn over to Deuteronomy, the 32nd of Deuteronomy: “See now, I, even I, am he, and there is no God beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal;” I do all these things, “and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” Read it in the 32nd of Deuteronomy, the 39th verse, No one can deliver out of my hand and I do all things. And then we turn to the 43rd and 45th of Isaiah: “I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel” and “Beside me there is no God.” There is no savior besides this I AM.
So you must be the judge, I can’t judge you, do you believe in him now? Or do you have a mental picture of a being on the outside, who lived 2,000 years ago, who addressed the Pharisees and the Jews of the day and told them, as something external to himself, that if you don’t believe that I am he, well then, you will die in your sins? You can’t see the mystery that way. It’s either you see it in the depths of your soul between your own being; it’s a dialogue between the outer man and the inner man. And when you really believe in this inner man, your own wonderful I-am-ness, nothing is impossible, and then things are revealed to you that startle the reasoning mind.
Let me share with you an experience. I’ve told you in the past that you’re only wearing a garment. This is a garment whether it be a so-called white garment, a black garment, a yellow garment, a red garment. They’re only garments, but I am not white, pink, yellow or red. I am Spirit, I AM. Now I have told you in the past my closest intimate in this field of mine was Abdullah. He and I studied…I studied with Abdullah for seven years in New York City, seven days a week. We were inseparable. Ab was an old man when I met him, he was then about ninety. He was born in Ethiopia of the Negro race in the Hebraic faith. That was his background. I was born as you see this garment (I’ve worn this from birth) in the Christian faith. And we were inseparable. He taught me scripture as I never heard it from my mother’s knee or from my minister or from anyone who taught me the Bible before. It became a book that was alive to me under the guidance of Abdullah. Well, here is a man, you look at him, here is a Negro, this brilliant, wonderful gentleman. Never once for one moment made any other claim, he would only say to me, “I picked up this garment ninety-odd years ago in Ethiopia.” He always described it as a garment that he wore, just a garment.
As William Blake, the great mystic poet has said that when he first…“when once he did descry the immortal man that cannot die.” And then he addresses in the form of an epilogue to what he calls the ruler of this world, Satan, the ruler of this world, the doubt of this world; and then as he put these words into the mouth of one addressing Satan (this doubt) that he does not know the garment from the man: “Thou really art a dunce,” said he, “and dost not know the garment from the man.” A man looking at a man sees a man as the thing he’s wearing and doesn’t for one moment discriminate between the wearer and the thing worn.
Well, this morning, in my usual ventures in the mind, here I found Abdullah. Ab is gone from this world now. Here stands before me—and Ab was my height, I’m 5’11”—Abdullah stands before me a man not over fifty years old, about 6’5”, in a Caucasian body. And here is Abdullah before me, no loss of identity, no change of identity, but this majestic figure, and he and I were discussing this theme of tonight. Then he showed me a little instrument with a tape, and then he said, “Now as you know, Neville, it only echoes; that’s all that it can do. That’s the world, the world is only mechanism, it’s just mechanical. The whole vast world, the eternal structure of God’s eternal world, all these garments they’re just as mechanical as that. And now, you’re not going to speak into it, you’re only going to hear, you’re going to listen, and what you listen to will play back there. What you listen to and hear from within you, as you actually hear it you’ll play it back there.” I thought of this party, that party, that party, and whatever I thought of and the very things I heard as I thought of it, and then he played it back coming from that tape. Not a word voiced from my vocal chords, just inwardly imagining that I am hearing the sound of a certain friend’s voice, and here comes this mechanical echo playing back.
Well, here was this majestic creature, Abdullah, 6’5 at the least towering in this sheer majesty, and here, what he never wore on earth. So I say I saw him in his primal form. He could have presented himself to me in an Oriental form; he could have presented himself to me any form, because all races are at his disposal. For when one rises into the spiritual world all things are subject to his imaginative power. And when I first met Ab and came into the place, he said to me, “You are late, Neville.” Called me by my name; never saw the man before. He said, “You are late, Neville, six months late.” I said, “I am late? I never saw you before, how do you know that I am late?” He said, “The brothers told me you were coming, and so you are six months late. For six months ago they told me to expect Neville, Neville’s coming, and you mustn’t leave the city until Neville has received all that you must give him. When you go, he must carry on.” And here was this man…I never saw him before…I couldn’t remember him. Then he said, “You have no memory, but it’ll come back, it’ll all come back.” And then for seven years, as I told you earlier, we were inseparable. For he taught me Hebrew, and taught me the scriptures, both ancient and modern, or rather, the Old and the New; and I began to experiment with this strange, peculiar power in man, which he taught me was Christ Jesus, nothing but Christ Jesus, the power and the wisdom of God (1Cor. 1:24). God is your own wonderful I-am-ness, and Christ was that in action. I-am-ness in action is Christ; God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And so, unless one believes in him he is condemned, completely condemned. Why is he condemned? Because he can’t get out of what he is.
And now we come to Blake. And then, Blake in his wonderful thought to his friend, Crabb Robinson, Blake said to Robinson one day, “There is nothing like death. Death is the best thing that can happen in life, but most people die so late and take such an unmerciful time in dying, God knows their neighbors never see them rise from the dead.” You see, Blake had this strange use of words, and he gave an enlarged meaning to words. So, you say something died; you think, well, now we put it in the grave. No, we’re in the grave, and we are in the grave of what is now our problem. And so we won’t believe in him to get out of it. For he is the resurrecting power, he can pull us out of every problem in the world. And so, if I now believe that I am poor, unwanted, this, that and the other, if I believe in him I am pulled out of the grave, and my neighbors will see me rise from the dead. But if I don’t know this, I take such a long time disengaging myself from the state that I seem never to rise from the dead.
Well, how would I rise from the dead? By this simple little technique that I’ve told you over the years now: When I know what I want to be, I simply assume that I am it. But I’m not dumb, and so if I were it I would share my good fortune with others and I would tell them, and they, in turn, would talk to me and tell me, as a friend, how they rejoice because of my good fortune. So now I carry on a mental conversation from the premise of my wish fulfilled, carry it on with them, and listen carefully until I actually hear the sound of their voice within me. Physically they may be in Timbuktu—I don’t care where they are physically—the fact that I bring them in my mind’s eye and carry on with them this mental conversation. Then, in a way that I do not know in my conceptual mind, the thing happens, and I’m resurrected from my former state, which was a dead state, into this now new living state.
So Blake was quite right. But he said, “There is nothing more wonderful than death”; then he observed that man trying so hard to get out of poverty and getting all the more into it like quicksand. He’s trying to get out of something but going all the more into it, because he doesn’t believe in Christ Jesus. He’ll go to a church and pray to some saint on the wall, and light a candle, and do all these things on the outside. But he doesn’t believe in Christ Jesus. If he really believed in Christ Jesus he wouldn’t go any place. Wherever he stands…it could be at a bar with a drink before him and maybe two in him…and simply shut out the bar completely, and carry on a mental conversation with a friend who is not physically present from the premise of fulfilled desire; and that is believing in Christ Jesus. Because wherever such a man stands is holy ground. He’s actually standing on holy ground because he’s one with Christ Jesus. He is walking in the company of Jesus, and no matter where he goes in this world he is actually one with him. And this is believing in him.
Now, the question is asked: “How can men call upon him in whom they do not believe, and how can they believe in him of whom they’ve never heard? And how can they hear of him without a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless he is sent?” So “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ” (Rom. 10:14,17). There’s nothing else to preach, the preaching of Christ. You have a problem? You don’t know what…it’s a mechanical problem, so it’s a problem. He is the solution of all problems. So you carry on a mental conversation with a friend that it’s solved. And maybe tomorrow you’ll have an accident in your lab, a seeming accident, and the solution is the result of the accident. It has happened all over the world. I am told that vulcanization is the result of an accident. Something spilled on the stove and whoever was there at the moment discovered vulcanization. That most of our so-called grand inventions are simply the results of a seeming accident in the lab. But either knowingly or unknowingly one believed in the solution of its problem. And so, he was believing in the solution to the problem, and he believed it. He didn’t go to some other party or some outside thing; inwardly he believed it could be found and he found it.
Well, you now actually take it and test it. You’re called upon to test Christ, test him and see (2 Cor. 13:5). You test him in this simple, simple way. I saw it so clearly—of course, I’ve been teaching it for years since I met Ab—but last night he came into my world, just as real as you are now, in fact, more so. And may I tell you, in eternity you will never lose your identity, not in eternity. Though God became you and that’s the stamp of identity, and when you awake you are God, and yet you do not lose your identity. But in this world into which you go you are God and all things are subject to your imaginative power. And you can clothe yourself at will in any sex. He could have presented himself without loss of identity in the female form, in that form of the Oriental, in the form, as he did last night, of the Caucasian, in the form of a Negro, in any form based upon what he wanted to reveal to me. But he came in that form to confirm what I’ve been telling you, that you do not lose identity and that you’re not black, white, yellow, pink or any other color, you’re God. God became man and God is man.
God really is man. God is human. People think he’s a big light and force and power. Yes, he’s all that, he’s infinite power, almightiness, yet he’s man. To stand in the presence of God as almightiness, and to know it, it is almightiness, and it’s man. And to stand in the presence of God and it’s infinite love and it’s man. Then to read The Divine Image of the mystic Blake where “God appears and God is light to those poor souls who dwell in night; but does the human form display to those who dwell in realms of day.” Then he goes on to take it apart for us: “And mercy has the human heart, pity the human face, and love the human form divine, and peace the human dress.” And to stand to confirm that, to stand right in the presence of infinite love and know it is the human form; it’s the human form, and he looks you right in the face, and then embraces you, and you are fused with the body of God. You become one with the body of God, without loss of identity. So all of us, the three billion and more of us, will not lose any identity only raised to the nth degree of majesty, with no loss of identity. With a power at your command where you can clothe yourself at will in any sex, in any racial form, or even without form if you so desire. But your face is still pity, infinite compassion on that face, and the heart, infinite mercy, and the form itself, love divine.
So, you be the judge of yourself, let no man judge you. Who are the condemned? Tonight, do not leave this room condemning self. Be like the woman taken in adultery. The law says (the law of the world, the law of Caesar) condemn her by stoning her to death. And so he rose within himself—for we are told he is bent and down on the sand when condemnation took place, and he was writing on the sand—and then when he rose, what are the words? They said, “Who are you?” He said, “Even what I have told you from the beginning. And when you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he” (John 8:25,28). When you have lifted up the Son of man, you’ll know I am he. And that’s a true story. The day will come you’ll have that experience, and you will find yourself looking at living, living golden light, and it’s alive, very much alive. As you look at it, from the depths of your soul you will know, I am it; and then, at that very moment of the knowledge you are it, you fuse with it, and then you are lifted up. Then you will know the words, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). In the same manner in which the serpent, which always means the departure of Israel from Egypt, when man is departing from this age and leaving it forever behind him, but still leaving it in its present frame. He departs, the spirit that is now God, for he became one with God. So he’s lifted up in the same manner that the symbol was lifted up in the darkness of Egypt, the departure of Israel from Egypt. So when the individual is called out of this age into that age, where he’s completely free, but completely set free, then he’s lifted up, just like the serpent. And you’re told, “In that day, you will know that I am he.” And you do, you look at it, and you know I am he; and fusion takes place; and then I AM goes up right up into Zion, into the skull.
So tonight, don’t condemn yourself. If you don’t condemn yourself, no man in this world can condemn you, they can’t do it. If you don’t want to share with them at the moment what you’re inwardly desiring and planning to accomplish, well, don’t share it. But don’t waver. You carry on these inner conversations, always from premises of fulfilled desire, and do not waver in the outcome. Be adamant about it! And no power can stop it from coming to pass; they can’t stop it. You try it and you will know from your own personal experience that it can’t be stopped. Because all things are possible to God, and God is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself. So I am in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is God in action; imagining is Imagination in action…same thing, same thing. You read the scripture carefully, you come to certain words and take your time to look up the word in the Concordance, you see it means Imagination. The active part of Imagination is imagining, and therefore that is God in action.
Now, like the speaker, if you were raised in the Christian faith as I was raised, you too held a man on the outside and thought him to be Christ Jesus, didn’t you? Well, now you can say this to almost every person in the world. They’re startled when they hear it. It comes straight from scripture, from the New Testament, but if they’ve never heard it in this manner they’re really startled: “From now on I will regard no one from the human point of view; even though I once regarded Christ from the human point of view, I regard him thus no longer.” You know who said it?—Paul. You will read it in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, the 5th chapter, the 16th verse. “I once regarded Christ from the human point of view; I regard him thus no longer.” He saw the light; and then he died. And so, in this wonderful letter of his, the previous letter, the 1st letter to the Corinthians, he said, “I die daily” (15:31). He discovered the art of dying. So he didn’t die once in the lifetime, he died daily. “I die every day” he said. So today I have a problem, and as long as I have that problem, well then, I’m alive to that problem, and the problem is alive to me, and I’m keeping it alive, for life is in me, not in it. And I, by occupancy of that problem, I animate it and make it alive. Now I must detach myself from that state which is now a problem and attach myself to the solution of that problem. And doing so, I die to one and live to the other. So he said, “I die every day.” Every day he’s faced with a problem, and now he knows how to die by giving up one state and entering another state. And he makes the state that he enters alive. Why?—because life is in himself.
Here, this past week, you must have seen a daily paper, our scientists…there are two schools of thought: Some believe that there is no life outside of earth, and others believe there’s a possibility of some life, maybe on the moon, maybe on Mars, maybe some other place. But they are equally divided. Some believe there is no life outside of earth, as we understand biological life; others believe that there is life and let us go and seek it, even if it takes $50 billion to prove or disprove. I’ll tell you from my own revelation—I didn’t know it before it was revealed to me—life is an activity of imagining. Everything is dead, and were it not that he who occupies this garment has life in himself nothing here would live, everything would be dead. Just like garments are dead, but they seem to be animated when you put them on and start walking. And so, these physical garments are just as dead, and you put them on and start walking, and so they appear to be something alive in themselves. They’re not alive in themselves. They are alive only because you, the occupant, you are alive; you have life in yourself. And they can start from now to the end of time and they aren’t going to find life outside of an activity of imagining. I don’t care what they do they aren’t going to find it. “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26); but nothing else is alive, it’s all dead, the whole vast world is dead. And this is the cradle of God’s grand experiment to actually bring himself out and to give life to that which he brings out, life in itself. It’s all here.
So in one little book called Man and the Stars by Sir James Jeans, and someone asked him that similar question: Why do you think, as an astrophysicist, that little earth, this tiny little speck—you couldn’t even see it; were you on the sun you couldn’t see the earth it’s so small. You could see the sun, because it’s so vast from the earth, but were you on the sun you couldn’t see the earth; it’s such a tiny little speck—what makes you so arrogant to believe that you, because you’re a man, that this thing called earth is so unique in this fabulous universe of God? If there is a God, said the scientist. You know what Jeans said to him? He said, “Have you ever seen the attempt of man to reproduce himself under a microscope? There are just as many potential sons in that one explosion of a man in the attempt to reproduce his image as there are in this fabulous display of light in the universe, just as many, and only one comes out. All the billions that are present under that microscope, they cease to be, and one comes out. Well, this is God’s grand creative explosion, and only one comes out. It’s the earth: the only thing that has all that it takes for this biological experiment, this wonderful creative darkness that is the earth, for a divine purpose.” That was Sir James Jeans.
Well, he has a vast following today, and this chap at Harvard who’s been bringing up this recently, he denies we will find anything outside of earth that you would call life, as we understand life. But I’ll tell him, if he’d only listen to me, he’s not going to find it any place outside of his own Imagination. And the day will come he’ll walk this earth, as I have done it, and then at that moment stop it within him, and everything stops. Not a man could move, not a bird could fly though they were in flight when I stopped it, not a leaf could continue falling though it was falling when I stopped it, and looked at it and it was all dead, but I mean dead. Not suspended animation; no, dead, no breath in it, for the breath wasn’t there. That was an animated body and the animation was within me in my own Imagination. And then I released that activity in me and it all continued moving once more again.
A great drama, which you will hear enacted but not understood when the great trial rolls around this month. For 2,000 years they’ve been reenacting this drama, and the words are asked, “Do you not know that I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?” And he answered, “You have no power over me unless it were given to you from above; therefore he who has delivered me into your hand has the greater sin” (John 19:10). Now, what is the “above”? He just got through telling him, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” So from that grand presence within, this is animated, and so, I’m playing a drama. Alright, no one can take me and arrest me were it not within me. I allowed it, and that something in the depth of myself allowed it, and it takes place. If you know this and believe in him, you’re free. So, you know the truth and then the truth will set you free (John 8:32).
So, who now is the condemned? God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. “He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe in him is already condemned, because he does not believe in the name of the only Son of God.” The name is not Jesus. Name means “nature.” The nature of this Son of God, he doesn’t believe in it; because Jesus is the Father. The world doesn’t know that; they can’t believe that. They speak of Jesus, Jesus being Jehovah, the grand I AM, that’s Jesus. If you spell it in French, you might get onto it: Je Suis. Spell Je Suis and you get Jesus—a little “i,” drop the “i”—Je Suis is “I am” in French. And so you spell it out in the Latin form, you’re going to get I AM. So that is God. “Go and tell them I AM has sent you” (Ex. 3:14). Who is speaking?—the Lord of the universe!
So he said, “Where is your Father?” He said, If you really knew me you would not ask that, because you could not really know me, in the true sense of that word, and not know God, for he and I are inseparable—that’s what he’s telling them. And so, “When you see me you see him…when you see me you see the Father (John 12:45, 14:8). So don’t ask me to show you the Father, for I and the Father are one, that’s what he’s saying. In the depths of the soul, one; he is the Father. So that is not the name of the Son. The name, in this case, is the nature of the Son of God, which is an inner livingness, an activity of your own wonderful human Imagination.
So, my plea to you, if you were trained as I was trained, listened as I had to…first I had to die to all of these beliefs and so completely die to them, I did not know how to explain that to my mother. I didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to hurt my father; they were trained as I was trained. And then to confront those that you love dearly! And you cannot enter into the conversation that formerly would be a normal part of an evening’s discussion, for you took for granted the historicity of the Bible, and now you can’t take it at all. It’s a mystery. It’s not secular history at all, it’s divine history. The whole thing is unfolding in the soul of man, and everyone is destined to play all the things claimed of Christ Jesus: To be supernaturally born as he was supernaturally born; and to be one who discovers his own Fatherhood, one with God the Father; one who is lifted up in the same manner that he said, When you lift me up, then you’ll know that I am he. And it will have everything recorded about him actually transpire in the soul of yourself, and the whole thing then becomes something very personal. And you know it is true of every being in the world. When it begins to unfold, the end is in sight, and then you are departing from this age into that age already prepared for those who are being lifted from this age. But all will be lifted from this age.
Therefore take the story…nothing is more important than that the story of Christ Jesus should be heard and responded to. In the Book of John it is underlined that necessity of hearing; one has to hear it. So go and preach Jesus Christ not as secular history. Go and try to the best of your ability to unfold for anyone who will hear you the mystery of that story, because everyone is going to have it. And so, you will be supernaturally born, not through the womb of woman; that’s a natural birth. You will discover that you have no father to this birth, no mother: You’re self-begotten. And then you’re a father. And then comes the tangible proof of your fatherhood because a son appears. Now you know exactly who he is and he calls you, Father. All the generations of humanity plus all of their accomplishments, their experiences, but everything, fused into a single youth; and that youth is eternity. but yet it’s human, his name is David, and he calls you, Father. Then you know—then, but not before—who you really are.
So the question is then asked of you in the depth of your soul, “Where is your Father?” and you answer, If you knew me you wouldn’t ask because you’d know who I am, if you really knew me. Then who are you? Even what I’ve told you from the beginning, that’s what he answers. Even what I’ve told you from the beginning, and now you don’t know me, said he, but I’ll tell you just what I was from the beginning. And then, everyone will then meet in this eternity, all fused into one body, without loss of identity. And that body is the most radiant body that you could ever conceive, and it’s God the Father, and you are he. All one, and not one lost in all God’s holy mountain. Not one condemned ever by God. He is not a God of retribution; he’s a God of infinite love. And so none will be lost and all will be raised to the nth degree of beauty, of perfection, majesty and every attribute of the world you can think of raised to the nth degree, and that’s you.
Now tonight, put this to the test. You put it to the test tonight in the things of life, like a better job and more money on it, a better home, more security, everything in this world that you want. Don’t ask anyone if it’s possible. You do it just by inwardly carrying on the conversation with yourself from the premise that it’s done, and see it happen in your world. But don’t forget how it happened. You take this discussion with someone, they may say to you, “Well, you know, it would have happened anyway.” And then comes the great accuser of the world, the great doubter of the world, but he knows nothing, the doubter of the world, because he doesn’t know that you’re not the garment that you wear. The doubter of the world and he thinks that your exit from this world through the gate of death is your final departure for all time. But he doesn’t know who you are. He thinks that when you came into this world you began for the first time. He doesn’t know who you are: you came from God and you return to God.
And while you came into this world, it didn’t really matter what was the nature of the garment that you picked out, it didn’t really. Because, wherever you picked it up, regardless of the race, the nation, you only picked it up for educative purposes, to hear of Christ Jesus while you walked the earth and of the real Christ Jesus, and then test it. And then while you’re walking this earth, then without notice to you a sudden unfolding within you of a series of mystical experiences which ___(??) you to leave it. And you’re leaving this world forever, but still leave it behind you for those who are being woven into it for the same educative purpose.
Now let us go into the Silence. And let us imagine that someone is talking to us and telling us either of their own good fortune, which we want for them, or else they are aware of our good fortune, and as a friend they are present to congratulate us. What would they say if they really were your friend and they heard of your good fortune? How would they express it? Well now, let them express it and you listen carefully as though you heard them. They are compelled to meet you as that being and express what inwardly you have heard them say. When they express it, it’s because the thing has already happened, and they are fully conscious of it, and as a friend they simply joy in congratulating you. Now let us go.
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___(??) they are all marvelous stories. I hope you will keep it up. So now he has the technique perfectly because he heard. First of all, he gave us three decided techniques. The first was feeling, when he felt the policy in his hand, and although no one else could get a policy in the area where he lived, he got the policy. Out of the blue it came, without any increase in any surcharge. Although it was a friend it was all resolved. Then came the visual concept. He used it to see the green where there was no green, only mauve decayed marble. When he saw green, out of the nowhere a total stranger became the means to move away the little fence and then put it where he had mentally seen it. So he had the sense of touch; he had the visual sense aroused. And then with his producer, where he could take a man who could never express himself in the superlative, could only express his joy by saying “It is good,” and how he raised it from that limited state that a thing is “good” to “Great!”, “Very great!” or “Just great!”, and then “Terrific!”, and then finally to “Absolutely sensational!” So he took a man who could not go beyond the expression of “good” when he approved of something and raised that man’s ability to express himself more generously…all by hearing.
So again he confirmed Blake’s definition of Imagination: It is spiritual sensation. For he distinctly heard the man’s voice—not just a man but that man—very definite about the man he wanted to hear and what he wanted the man to say. So he heard it, and the man repeated it in the next breath really. So all these things he shared with us were exciting stories. I want to thank him from the platform, and hope that he will continue to favor us with more of these wonderful stories. And everyone present, you’re invited to experiment and then write me a letter, and give me the permission to tell it. If you want me to know it but there is something in it you would rather not be broadcast, just state it. That you want me to know that it worked but you would rather not have the thing told, I won’t tell it, I promise you, only with your permission. So you write me. But first of all, experiment.
Now are there any questions, please?
Q: (inaudible)
A: My dear, there’s nothing greater in this world. Good…it’s a conversation that takes place in the depths of the soul. You can’t get anything deeper than I AM: it’s the center of the universe. So when you hear it, you hear it from within. But quite often it seems to be to the individual who heard it as coming from without. But it’s not really coming from without at all. The drama of the I AM in the Book of John, the gospel of John, is simply a series of I AM sayings, right through the entire gospel, because he’s presented as God himself. So you find all the grand I AM sayings in the gospel of John. So thank you. I’m glad that you heard it. As is his friend, the writer…I call him his friend because such relationships can develop into very nice friendships though they are worlds apart socially and intellectually and financially. You can still have friends with every level in this world; you don’t have to have them on your own level. Quite often they can’t become friends; they’re rivals. But this could be a very good friendship. He heard the grand voice and he thought it came from without. Then he heard it repeated a second time, and then a third time. And even the symbol of the presence was the one that scared him, as told us so clearly in the Book of Exodus. And so, when he looked, he hid his face because he was afraid of God and he was afraid to look at the symbol of God… though he heard the voice coming from the depths of his soul.
Now are there any questions, please…any other questions?
Q: Would you explain about the unjust steward and his master commends him?
A: You hear that question? First of all, it’s a long one and that’s the theme I will use for “The Rascal.” You’ll find it in the coming series…a clever rascal, for that’s the title I gave to the unjust steward. But far from being an unjust steward it’s something that you and I are invited to emulate: to be just as unjust as he and falsify the record. Don’t go into your office and falsify the physical record, because as you do it, you will know you run the risk of being put away and you’re doing it to yourself if and when you get caught. But you falsify the mental record; that’s what all repentance is. Are we not told this is an evil generation? Therefore, on this level, I would be the eyes of an unjust steward.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Abdullah? Lived to be over a hundred and had one consuming desire, to put the body back where he picked it up which was in Ethiopia. The last time I met Abdullah was about eight years ago in New York City. About seven years ago I met his secretary and she voiced that request of his, and said he was planning to return to Ethiopia. I haven’t seen or heard from Abdullah or the secretary since. I know he’s gone from this sphere. I know now that when I see him he is wearing his primal form, which is completely under the control of his imaginative power. It was Abdullah who first taught me how to “die,” like he said to me back in 1933, “You will die but not surely die.” Well, that seemed like so many idle words that I would die but not surely die. And he was telling me the great truth that I could not at the time grasp. Because when he told me this I was a strict vegetarian, teetotaler, celibate; I was everything that did nothing…that was Neville. Whatever man would do normally I didn’t do it; therefore, he said to me, “You know, you’re so good you’re good for nothing.” And then he said to me, “You’re going to die.” So I went to Barbados, still all these restrictions, and I came back from Barbados three months later and I hadn’t one restriction on me. And I can’t tell you to this day how it happened—came back drinking wine and liquor and enjoying it. Tried to smoke, couldn’t enjoy it when I tried it. And all the others that I tried I enjoyed. And so, that was my Ab. And he would always say to me, “The brothers came last night and what the brothers told me to tell you”—always referred to the divine society as the brothers. He really took it in the most wonderful manner: “Our Father,” therefore the fatherhood of God would imply “our Father” the brotherhood of man. And so, the exalted men—made to have gone through this vale of tears, which is called death, and resurrected from it—are part of the divine society, therefore, the brothers. And he never referred to them in any other way than the brothers. The brothers told him I was coming and I was late.
And the reason why I was late, the man who suggested to me that I should go there to hear him was a man that I didn’t trust at all. He went to Fordham University in the hopes of becoming a priest and he flunked in his third year. His father was a rumrunner in the days of prohibition, and died and left him an estate, the only child, of two million dollars. And he proceeded to lose the entire two million in the first year on Wall Street. So I had no confidence in his ability to do anything. So when he told me he met a man that I really must hear, I postponed and postponed and postponed the going. And one day I ran out of excuses, and it was a Sunday evening, and he said, “Now you have no more excuses. I know you have no dates, so come with me.” So I accepted. Ab was just about to start when I went through the door and so I took the first chair, not to disturb the twenty who were present. Ab was sitting in a huge, big chair, and he came right over, called me by my name, he said, “Neville, you are late, you’re six months late.” So I was stunned. The man knew my name and could tell me that I was six months late. And it was about six months before that that David, his name was David ___(??), asked me to come and hear a man called Abdullah. And from that day on I never failed, I was with Ab daily. ___(??) but I can’t, I have to pay rent here. But he would never take a dollar from me.
Goodnight.