Awakening Faith in God A New Spiritual Journey | Neville Goddard Teachings

Those who experience the Christian mystery are charged with the responsibility of telling others. Their aim is the awakening of faith in God; for, as Paul, I asked the question: How can men call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news." But not all have heeded the gospel; for Isaiah says,

"Who, O Lord, has believed what he has heard from us?" So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from the preaching of Christ. Now Christ is not a person outside of you who lived two thousand years ago. Christ is the cosmic being who became humanity by burying himself in every child born of woman. Ask the average person if they believe in God, and many of them will say yes. But when asked to define him, they will describe someone other than themselves. So how can men call upon one in whom they do

not believe? I tell you, the only God in the universe is your own wonderful human imagination. When you say, "I am," that is God. There is no other God other than he who is encased in the limitation of your little garment of flesh. How can you call upon him when you do not believe you are he? And how can you believe in him of whom you have never heard? What preacher ever told you that your own wonderful human imagination is God? They paint a word picture of a God outside of you, but that is not

the true God. And when someone comes and tells you who he really is, the idea is blasphemous. No one wants to believe that he is creating the conditions of his life, but God is the only causative power, as there is nothing but God. Everything is caused by imagination; he is the only reality. So how can you believe in him of whom you have never heard? And how can you hear of him unless there is a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless he is sent? This morning's paper contained an article saying that scientists

have discovered that the so-called throne Peter was to have sat upon two thousand years ago is only nine hundred years old. They have now taken the chair out of its encasement but are keeping it as a holy relic when it was never any more than a piece of wood upon which some self-appointed nut sat while calling himself the emperor, the pope, or holy one. But now, after a thousand years of nonsense, the truth has been revealed. What are we going to do when man does not want to hear the truth, that he is responsible for

his own life and that his imagination is the only God? When you look out on the world, you may think you had nothing to do with its creation, but you did. You do not know it yet because its purpose has not been revealed to you, but by the restriction and limitation of your own creative power, you became your created world that you may expand beyond it and create a still greater world for an even further expansion of yourself. God is ever expanding his illumination. He took upon himself the limit of contraction called man, the limit

of opacity called man, that he may break the limitation and expand. That's the glory of it all! I have experienced scripture and am under an obligation to tell it. Like Jeremiah, if I say I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my being, and I am weary withholding it in, and I cannot. I must share my experience with others to encourage all to believe in God, but it is my responsibility to tell them who God is. When men believe

the characters of scripture to be historically true, they are taking truth and modifying it to the limitation of the weakness of the human soul. They are not characters of history but personifications of the aspects of the human mind. This is true from Jesus down. Jesus is the personification of the fulfillment of the plan that you set up in the beginning of time, having created the plan before the world came into being. You and I entered our creation. Jesus is the fulfillment of our plan. When his story fulfills itself in you, you must tell your brothers

who are sound asleep to wean them from the nonsense told year after year of some external God to whom they must pay homage when there is no external God. It is Christ in man who is his hope of glory, and Christ is God's plan of redemption, which was set up before the world was. That plan is in the depth of every being, waiting to be awakened and fulfilled. Now we are told that the pattern man said, "Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins." Put the little word "is" in this

sentence: "Unless you believe that I am, he, you will die in your sins." Those who heard that statement did not know that he was speaking of the Father, but the Father is the cause, just as your father is the cause of you. For without a father, you could not be. So must all life be fathered. So I say to you, unless you believe that your "I am" is the father of your life, you will continue to miss your goals in life. Your "I am-ness" is the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is no other. How! Do

I know this to be true? Read his story as told in the Gospels. Having been born from above, he said, "I am from above, and you are from below, and where I'm going, you cannot now come." Why? Because, having fulfilled Scripture, he is returning to the source with the knowledge that he is the source. It isn't that you will not come, but that you cannot come until you have fulfilled what you agreed to fulfill before that the world was. You and I agreed to dream in concert, and we will not break our pledge to each

other. We came down from heaven and descended right into our creation, where we are playing the parts we agreed to play. And as long as we think of God as another, we are sound asleep. But when the time is fulfilled, one is sent to awaken his sleeping brothers, saying, "He who sees me sees him who sent me," for "I sent myself." And who am I? I am the one you call God. I call him Father, for having found him, I know that he and I are one. We are told that the one who was sent

was called Paul. It was Paul who spent his days, from morning to evening, testifying to the kingdom of heaven and trying to convince all to whom he spoke about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and the prophets. Some were convinced by what he said, while others disbelieved. But he welcomed everyone who came; that's all I can do. Having had the same experiences as Paul, all I can tell you is what I have experienced. I know that Jesus Christ is the only reality; he is God the Father housed in you as your awareness of being.

You will know this to be true the day you are possessed by a peculiar vibration, which Scripture calls wind, saying, "The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell whence it comes or whether it goes." So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. When the wind possesses you, your entire body will vibrate, and you will awaken in the tomb where you buried yourself, to realize that no man took your life; you laid it down yourself. That you have the power to lay it down and

the power to lift it up again. You laid your creative power down within your own creation, which is man, for eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation, which was an act of mercy. Man is part of the eternal structure of the universe, and you laid yourself down within man; that was your act of mercy. Now, I would like to change the word "creation" to "recreation," for it is a transcending of one's own creation. I, Divine Imagination, came down into my own creation, and by recreating it, I transcend it to awaken myself from

this body of death. One day, you too will awaken within your skull to find yourself in it. You will come out to find the symbolism of Scripture concerning the birth of Jesus Christ surrounding you, but it's all about you, not another. For you are Jesus Christ coming out of Golgotha, your own skull. The babe wrapped in swaddling clothes will be there, and those who witness your birth are there, but they cannot see you as you are now. God's begotten, and God is Spirit. Jesus Christ is a pattern buried in you which you will experience one

day. Then you will know that the Bible is your own personal spiritual biography. Let men have their so-called holy relics and all the other things, and forgive them, as they do not know what they are doing. They are the blind leaders of the blind. The other day, someone asked me if the Bible was all I ever talked about; they thought it was very limited and monotonous. But I find it a never-ending mystery. I preach Christ crucified on humanity, not on some little piece of wood in the Near East 2,000 years ago. There never was any

man who was crucified in that manner. Oh, we have insane men like our Hitlers and Stalins who will crucify a man because of his belief. In our own land, men have hung other men on trees thinking they are doing God's business, but that's not the story of Christ, for he became humanity that humanity may become God. Now, no one ascends into heaven but he who first descended from heaven. The son of man buried in you is that son who is going to come out of you, and coming out of you, he is the son of

man, one with the one who descended from heaven who is God. Listen carefully: I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star. Yes, I am the root, the father of David, yet I am David's offspring. So the father of David and the offspring of David are one and the same being. David, the symbol of humanity, always does the father's will. Everyone and everything here is doing the father's will. Say "I am"; that's the father. Condition your "I am" by saying, "I am prosperous," and you are doing the father's will. In the

third chapter of the book of Samuel, the word Samuel in Hebrew means "his name is God." Samuel the Lord spoke to the boy Samuel, saying, "Those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me they shall be lightly esteemed." In other words, your concept of yourself is either your honor or your dishonor. If you feel little when you meet someone, you are dishonoring God. Have you ever met anyone you thought more important than you? He may be richer, bigger, stronger, or more handsome. He may be everything you think you are not. But if...

You felt small in his presence because he had more money, was wiser, stronger, or better dressed than you. You are dishonoring God, as God's name is "I Am." And he who honors me, I will honor; and he who despises me shall be lightly esteemed. The boy Samuel, believing God to be another, heard a voice seemingly coming from without, so he went to the Prophet Elijah, which means "My God." He was told to go back and dream again. This he did, only to repeat the dream three times. He heard the voice calling him until he knew

who the Lord was and grew into his oneness to become the great prophet. The Samuel in you speaks, saying, "Those who honor me, I will honor, and those who despise me will be lightly esteemed." If you feel inferior towards anyone, you are despising the name of God, which is "I Am." Don't let anyone make you feel little; they may try to do it, but only if you feel small already. If you don't feel little, it does not matter what or who they are. You may not have a nickel in your pocket, but you won't feel

little when you know that God is your imagination. You can't be more than God, so you are God. Do not walk the earth in an arrogant way, but never let anyone put you down. I was born on a little island called Barbados. The island is just like a large farm, where everything is planted in order to produce a dollar. We planted sugar cane, from which we received its produce of molasses, rum, etc. When I was a child, we had no chemical fertilizers; the animal products called manure were used to put light back into the fields.

When we would scatter this on the field to fertilize it, we would call it broadcasting. This was long before telephones, radio, or television. Now we have a broadcasting industry, which tells us that we will lose our hair, teeth, and everything if we don't buy a certain product. Isn't that BS? And then from BS, they go to MS—that's more of the same thing as it's piled higher and higher. That's the world, so let no one here make you feel little. You are God; He is buried in you as your own wonderful human imagination. In the 13th

chapter of 2 Corinthians, Paul invites you to test God, saying, "Come, test yourself. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?" That's quite a challenge! If Jesus Christ is in you—and you know He is—your human imagination, which you believe creates reality, you can test Him by imagining that you are what at the moment your reason denies and your senses deny. Now, can you believe in your imagination? Can you awaken your faith in the true God, who is your human imagination? Try it! Walk as though you were the person you desire to be. Ask

yourself how you would feel if it were true, for feeling creates life. This is brought out in Scripture; we are told that Isaac was blind when he said, "Come close, my son, that I may feel you." He could not see what he was assuming, so he sought the feeling. Throughout Scripture, you find the blind father calling his son to be felt and touched. When Joseph placed his sons before Jacob, who admitted being blind, he crossed his hands as he blessed the boys, then justified his act. Now I ask you, what would the feeling be like

if your desire could be felt? How would you feel now if you were the man you want to be? Catch the feeling and believe in Jesus Christ, knowing He is your imagination. Everything is possible to imagine, but it takes faith to create its reality. Just as I said earlier, first you must hear, then acceptance will come through faith. How can men call upon Him in whom they have not believed? The average person does not believe in himself. Before I wrote the first chapter in my book, "Your Faith is Your Fortune," I wrote one little line

saying, "Man's faith in God is measured by his confidence in himself." I can't tell you what criticism I have had because of that statement, but it's still there, for I know it is true. Your faith in God is measured by your confidence in yourself because your true self is God. So how could a man call upon himself when he does not believe in himself? And how can he believe when he has never been told? And how can he be told unless there is a preacher? And how can there be a preacher unless he is sent?

So one who has experienced Scripture is sent, as I have been sent. So I say to you, you don't owe anything to anyone because God Himself became you. Even though you can't pay rent and you haven't eaten much today, within you is the being who owns the universe, who created and sustains it. His name is "I Am." Rather than calling upon His name, call with His name by saying, "I am free. I am wealthy. I am rich. I am healthy." The "I Am" that you are is the creative power of the universe. I have personally

experienced the story of Jesus Christ in detail, so I know what I am talking about. I am not theorizing. Christ in you is God's Plan of Salvation, and God you is your "I Am." When you experience the story of Jesus Christ, it will be in the first-person singular present tense. You don't see another; you are the one who first resurrects and is born as Scripture unfolds itself within you. I stand before you as a witness, and like Paul, I spend my last days from morning to night testifying to... The kingdom of God is trying to

convince everyone that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. He came here only to fulfill Scripture. Christ is in you and must fulfill Himself in you, so let no one make you feel little, and don’t you feel arrogant. I cannot meet anyone I do not respect; he may be the one who shines my shoes, but he is God. I am shining my own shoes in the being who is doing it, and I respect him. He has to pay rent, buy food, and clothing. Just because he plays the part of shining shoes

doesn’t mean he is less than anyone else. Behind these masks, we are all brothers. I knew you before the world was. At that time, we were one being, who is God. We are made up of a brotherhood of infinite brothers, yet in spite of the number, we will all know each other individually and distinctly as we return to the one being we came down as, becoming fragmented into our own creation. We are going back to the one being we really are, who is God the Father. You are He, and one day, you are going to

know it from experience. Now, let us go into the silence. When you see a cross, do you think of suffering? When you hear someone say he was crucified, do you think, as the world undoubtedly thinks, that it is a state of suffering? And if I told you that the cross is a spiritual wedding ring, would you believe it? When you see someone wearing a wedding ring, you know that there’s a union, there’s a marriage, and there should be love in that state. There should be. But may I tell you, when you see the cross hereafter,

think of a spiritual wedding ring, for it really is. The cross is the symbol of God becoming man so that man may become God. That’s the cross. The central teaching of the Bible is the cross. He actually becomes us; He nails Himself upon us, for we were dead, and He was alive. He so loved the creature that He became His own creation to convert it, to transform it like Pygmalion into Himself. Now, we are told in Genesis that a little man is given seemingly to another, but all the commands in the Bible are to God,

by God, for man was not alive. He commands man to leave everything and cleave to his wife, and then they become one flesh. So when we read the Bible, and see the bodies, male and female, you might think when you read of a woman that it means a female. No, it doesn’t. When you read of a man, it means a male. No, it doesn’t. Whether it be male or female, it is speaking of us. And woman, we are told in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, will be saved by the bearing of children. If you take

that phrase, "the bearing of children," and go to the bottom of the page, it should be in your Bible— it is in my Bible, in all my Bibles. I have many. There’s a little note at the bottom of the page which tells us that that phrase, “bearing of children,” literally means "by the birth of the child," definitive, the child. So woman is saved by the birth of the child. Well, I am that woman. I am a man, a male. I have sired two children; my children live in this world. I’m married, but I am the

woman spoken of in that passage, the last verse of the second chapter of Paul’s first letter to Timothy. I am the woman; God is the husband. Listen to these words carefully: Sing, O barren, it begins in Isaiah 54. Sing out, you barren one, for you will be more fertile than those who are married. In the same chapter, Isaiah 54:5, the statement is made: Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is His name. My Maker is my husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name. Now I am told He has to become me and

cleave to me, for I am His wife. He had to leave everything and forget everything, and so cleave to me. We become one flesh. Now, Paul tells us at the very end, when he completes the job, Paul makes the statement, "Henceforth let no one trouble me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus" (Galatians 6:17). Not little holes through here, or a crown of thorns on my head, or a gash in my side, or holes in my feet, but everything said of Him you experience, seemingly, in your body. You go through all the

experiences, and it takes place in your body—His birth, His fatherhood—everything in the world takes place in you. So you bear on your body the marks of Jesus. Now, in the meanwhile, let us now turn to what came after this comment was made to man. It came, if you read Genesis, only 400 years after the promise, and if you read Exodus and the letters of Paul, it came 430 years after the promise. And this is what he calls the law. He said no man is justified before God by law. Yet here was the law, and God

gave it to us because of transgression. It pays to the nth part, to the most simple iota of one’s transgression, whatever it is. And here you use it, but you can't be justified by it. But learn the law, for we are told in the first chapter in the book of Psalms, "Blessed is the man who delights in the law of God, for in all that he does, he prospers." This is a promise; dwell upon it; it's not the real promise. But this is a promise concerning the law of God. The real promise preceded it by

400 years. If we read one book and four thirty, if you read another book. But regardless, it precedes this law. But blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord, for in all that he does, he prospers. You can't fail in the law, but no matter how wisely you exercise your talent, which is the use of law, it doesn't in any way qualify you for the marks of the body of Jesus. That is grace; that's the gift. It will happen regardless of what you do in this world. Not one person in this

world will fail; it can't fail because you personally are not doing it. You are the bride of God. It is God who is doing it, and God is doing it on us. He fell in love with us, as told us in the first chapter of Ephesians. He chose us in Himself before the foundation of the world, so I was His choice before the foundation of the world. He selected me as a man will go out to find a woman that he wants, and he wants her with all of his heart to bear his name and

bear children if he can have children. In this case, only one child God is going to have from you—only one, only one—as told you in the third chapter, the sixteenth verse of Galatians. There will only be one; everyone's going to have one to prove that God loves you and became you. The one is going to be God's child, and it's going to be your child because that child is going to call you father. Although I am His bride and seemingly female in this state, a wonderful statement is made: we shall all be one in Jesus

Christ, and the phrase in Greek "all be one in Jesus Christ" will all be masculine. Why they didn't use it, I will never know, but there it is. We shall all be one, and that phrase "all be one," literally translated, all be masculine. He fell in love with man, generic man, in a capitalized sense, though in this level we're all split in two, male and female. Now we come back to the law: in all that you do, you will prosper if you abide by the law, and the law is just as simple as this. As

I stand here now, I could in twelve seconds be in twelve different states of consciousness. I can think of you, think of you, think of the other one, and then all of a sudden everything that I think of—that's a state of consciousness. I could be in as many states as there are seconds in the time that I'm thinking. But the state that I'm going to externalize and objectify and make real in my world is the state that I occupy more than I do others. That state to which I most constantly return constitutes my home, my

true self. And so I go into a state. If tonight you want wealth, let no one in this world tell you you shouldn't want it. If you want health, let no one tell you you shouldn't want it. I don't care what you desire now in this world; you may, after you realize it, tire of it. We know that in the world there are people who build a home, spend a fortune on the home, and then in just a matter of moments, they tire of it. Not just the home alone, but family relationships in the home

change, and they don't want any part of that home because it's the relationships that occupy it. They don't want the home, they don't want the relationships, and they don't want any part of it. Yet they wanted it seemingly forever when they got it. That's life. There is no static thing in this world because man at every moment in time could change a state. So when you know what you want, I don't care what it is that you want; you want to be happily married? Perfectly alright. There are people all over this world today, many of

them are in the limelight running for the highest office in this land, who wanted a change of marital relationships more than the highest office in the land. Because if they wanted it more than that change, they would have subjected themselves to what they considered the unlovely relationship in the hope of fooling the voters tomorrow because they wanted it. No, they wanted a change of this relationship more than they wanted the highest office in this land, and did it. So I say there is no static picture in this world tonight. Let no one and ask no

one if you should want it; for let me quote one of the truly great awakened minds of all eternity: "I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be simply states of the sleep into which the soul may fall in its deadly dreams of good and evil—the vision of the last judgment." So I fall into a state; it seemed to me good, and it's good because I so hungered for it. I am in it; I may tire of it in a matter of moments or in a

matter of thirty years or in a matter of some other length of time. It was neither good nor evil, simply a state. There are infinite states in the world into which man falls, but when you come here, you shouldn't fall into states; you should deliberately enter a state. Even though you think, "Well, now this is a state," don't fall into it with your eyes wide open. I want to be... Wealthy as you conceive wealth to be, all things being relative, what you and I consider a normal income to live graciously in our present world would

be a millionaire's income in most of this world. If you think X number of thousands you require to live well in this world we live in, but you go to 90% maybe 95% of the world, if you had that sort of income, you would be a king of kings in their area. So all things are relative. So where you are, what do you want? Name it. Well, when you know exactly what you want, listen to the words: "Blessed is the man." This is a beatitude. "Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the

Lord, for in all that he does, he prospers." You can't fail if you delight in the law of the Lord. You don't feed your mind with anything other than the image desired to be externalized in your world. If today reason denies the image you desire, if anything in this world—if your senses dictate that these are the facts of life, but they are in conflict with the image that you want to externalize, you deny your senses completely. Deny the senses and reign and entertain the image, for this is God's creativity. And so I live this night

in the assumption that I am the man that I want to be, even though everything reason and senses deny it. But I live in it, and I'm speaking from experience. Then, at the end of the not distant future, I begin to crystallize it and externalize it, and then I duplicate it. I tell the story to others, and they begin to duplicate it, and then they tell it to others. At the end of a few years, we have hundreds and hundreds of witnesses to this principle. Does it matter what the world thinks? Does it matter what

anyone in this world would tell me about it? If I can duplicate it and prove it by experience? Well, this is God's law. The law is conditional. I can't be feeling sorry for myself and expect to call some practitioner who will push a button, leaving me as I am, and then produce results for me. I have it all the time. Someone will call up and say, "Will you do so and so?" The purpose of it all is to produce a change in the individual, not just a change in the circumstances roundabout where it vanishes like

snow when the sun comes out. It's to produce in the individual a change that sustains the change when it externalizes itself in the world. But someone will say, "You know, my people aren't paying the rent. Three of them are now in arrears; they owe me three months, and they want you to, in some strange way, produce some little miracle where they all put their money down, and they remain just as bitter as they were prior to the loss of the three months." They remain just where they were prior to the call and think that the

little pushing of the button is going to produce a change in their life. That call will come through day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, until you can produce in them, the caller, a change in their own heart. When you produce it in them, they need not call you ever again for the simple reason that the change in them externalizes itself in their world. And it works that way. So if there's a practitioner here, you don't just push buttons; you produce changes in them. And may I tell you, you don't

need the income from any being in this world. If they pay you, all well and good, but don't depend upon any person's income in this world. You don't need to. Your own consciousness of wealth will produce wealth. You'll have everyone in this world, and it will simply flow like a river toward you. Don't depend upon anyone. No one is your source of supply. The only source is God, and His name is "I am." That's God; there is no other God. So if they call, let them call. Try to persuade yourself that they have changed their

attitude toward self, toward life. That change in them will automatically result in a change in their lives. They can't help it. But when someone makes them feel— and here I tell you this because of a recent call, wherein the city, three different ones from different groups, not all in the same so-called ism, different isms—and they tell her, "Forever you will have to depend upon me to produce these things for you." Well, here this poor child believes it, and so she sends X number of dollars every month to this one, this one, the other one. And

then she calls the speaker. I've always warned her, "Don't you send me one penny," which she doesn't have a dime. "Don't you send me a nickel. I want to produce in you the change." But she so completely believed that they could influence her, that unless she calls upon them, these things will recur. But they recur and recur and recur. How to get her to really believe in God? The only God in the world is her own wonderful "I am-ness." Now, here is the story: He loved her. He loved her more than any man in this

world could ever love her. I love my wife, and she and I together produced in this world this glorious child, and we revel in the daughter that we have. But I could not in eternity, as a man, love my wife to the degree that God loves us. God so loved her that He became her, and He’s one with her, and His name is not... Never! His name is "I Am." That's his name. He's honored upon her, crucified upon her; she was but a thought—that's all she was to him. And he so loved her, he nailed

himself upon her and completely forgot his divinity. He actually cleaved to her, and he will not let her go until they become one, not two. They were two in the beginning: God and this one that he loved. In the end, only one. To him, he is so lost in his identity that when he rises in her, it's she. It's not another; it's just the individual that he fell in love with. He gives his name to her; she had none. He gives his name, and she bears the name, and it's "I Am." And she wakes now.

Henceforth, let no one bother me. Don't let them trouble me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. And these are the marks of Jesus. You aren't going to find them, as the religious world tells you, with the stigmata: bleeding hands, and bleeding head, and bleeding side, and bleeding feet. They are not the marks of Jesus. I have had these, and they're marvelous. It's a thrill beyond the wildest dream when you feel yourself sucked in, like a vortex or a series of vortices, sucked into this body. I've had that, but they're not the

marks of Jesus. The marks of Jesus are all written out in dramatic form in Scripture. The first mark of Jesus, but the very first one, is the resurrection. That's the first mark. How do you mark that? When the individual in himself awakens from a profound sleep to find he really prior to this moment was dead, for he awakes in a grave, and no one but the dead are interred. So you enter them, and if a person is now in a seiler—the holy seiler—he awakens to find himself awake and alive, but he's in a grave. Then

he must have resurrected. That's the first mark. The second mark is his birth. He comes out of it, and he comes out of that seiler just as a physical child comes out of a physical womb. And then come the other marks in discovery. Then you look at it: when the fullness of time had come, God sent the spirit of his son into my heart, crying, "Father." When the fullness of time had come—when the nine-month pregnancy is over; nine months could be nine ages—but when the fullness of time had come, God sent the spirit of his

son into my heart, crying, "Father." So in my being, when the fullness of time has come, his son comes and calls me "Father." If he calls me "Father," God's work on me is complete, for he used me as his bride. He cleaved to me and wouldn't let me go, but he had to produce his creative power, and he had to produce it by producing a son. He produced in me a son that calls me "Father" after the fullness of time had come. So, when the fullness of time had come, if you want it, the fourth

chapter, the fourth verse of Galatians: when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son forth into my heart, crying, "Father." And then the son calls me "Father." His work in me is complete. One more step to bear the marks of Jesus. But he takes it, and this is now the tenth chapter, the twentieth verse of Hebrews, and he strips me down from top to bottom, and it's called the curtain that separated man from God. There's one little membrane to be severed, and that which separated man from God is now split right down the

middle. And it's called the curtain; that is his flesh. You feel it all on your body. Everything that I am talking about you actually feel is taking place here, but it's not on this; but you feel it here. For this is the shadow of the real body. So it actually, in some way, has all the effects that you get in the depths. The immortal body casts its shadow upon this, and you feel it is taking place here, but it's not. It is in the soul, the real you. So here, you could this night wisely apply

God's law, and no being in the world can stop you from becoming what you want to be. If you stop for one moment and look over the roster of the world, take all the big so-called intelligent, wise, wonderful men in the world—all the great politicians of the world. Any of them go back all just so short a time, and you will see they were all just as you are now. They had no reason in the world to believe that they are what they are today. But none, not one, is endowed with any more intelligence, with

any more power. Undoubtedly, 99% of them stumbled into these states. I don't want you to stumble into it. I want you to go deliberately into these states. If you stumble into a state, when the convulsion takes place—as it always does in the world—and you are emptied from that state, you may not know how to get back into it, because you didn't go into it deliberately. If you go into these states deliberately, it wouldn't make any difference what convulsion took place, and they will take place; they always take place. How to go back into that state

if it's a comfortable state to be in. You may go into any state in this world that you want, but if you don't know you are in a state, and you think, "Well, now this is simply a natural thing based upon my birth," well, then when you are emptied... From that state, you may never find your way back into that state, but you can. Everyone in this world could go into the state of their choice. I'm speaking from experience; when I have over 900 letters at home, each testifying to a deliberate entrance into a state

from people who knew nothing of this before, but they simply decided to take a state into which they would go. They entered that state, viewed the world from it as though it were true, and then, in a way that they could not consciously define or devise, the state appeared and became real in their world. Everyone can do it, but don't forget: don't fall into it. Go into it deliberately. Tonight, if I were to be, and I name it anything in this world, then let me assume now that I am the man that I want to

be. Remaining in it, let me view the world and see it mentally as I would see it were it true. If I do, I am delighting in the law of God, and in all that I do, I prosper. No one can stop it, but no matter how I do it, I cannot earn the grace, because grace cannot be earned. Grace is a gift; because it is a gift, it is unconditional. And that's my glorious concept: in this world, no one can fail. So, if tonight you be a pauper of paupers, when in the fullness of

time God is calling you, you'll receive the kingdom. The greatest in this world does not compare to the least in the kingdom. So you may be, at the moment when you are called, unknown, poor as a church mouse, with not a thing in this world to support your entrance; but you don't need it. You become heir—the heir of God—at that moment when the fullness of time has come. But in the interval, waiting for the fullness of time, use God's law. God's law will never fail you, but it doesn't qualify you to receive His grace. If

you could qualify to receive His grace, then it isn't grace, for grace means unmerited gift, something given without merit on your part. It is love in action that isn't earned by the one to whom it is given. You couldn't earn it. On the other hand, if you have done something of which you are ashamed, may I comfort you: the 11th chapter of Romans says God has consigned everyone to disobedience that He may have mercy upon all. Verse 32 states that, were it not for divine mercy, no one could be saved. But divine mercy chose us

in Himself before the foundation of the world. He chose me; He chose you. When He emptied Himself upon me, I do not remember. I have had moments where I have had remembrances of the thrill. It was a thrill; may I tell you it wasn't pain to me. Whatever it was to God, who nailed Himself upon me, that I don't know. But to me, on whom He nailed Himself, for I’m the cross—this is the tree on which He hangs—and when He nailed Himself upon me, the tree became alive, and it was a thrill. There was no

pain whatsoever, as far as I’m concerned. It might have been pain to Him who so loved me that He hanged Himself upon me. It may be. And so we're told by Blake, the gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain. There grows one in the human brain—songs of experience. So here, on my brain, He is nailed, and the extension is right on this body. But as far as I'm concerned, it was no pain; it was ecstatic delight—supreme delight—when He made me alive. And

then He said to me, "Remain faithful to His love." And then He awoke me. Today I can say with Paul: I now bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The birth from above—the memory of it is so vivid. The resurrection from the grave is so vivid. The discovery of David is so vivid. The splitting of this body from top to bottom and the ascent up the spinal cord into my skull are so vivid. All these marks of Jesus I bear upon my body, so I know that this is the last time. He has completed

His work in me, and He had to bring forth only one child. Listen to the words of the third chapter, the 16th verse of Galatians, and here He promises to bring forth one. The Greek word really means seed, and the King James Version translates the word as seed. But to give it meaning in the modern translation, the Revised Standard Version translates the word seed as offspring. And so we're told in Galatians 3:16 that this offspring—then they said He does not say offspring meaning many, but offspring meaning one, which is your offspring, which is Christ. Now,

when you hear the word Christ, you think automatically, if you're a Christian, of Jesus Christ. The word Christ in Greek is the identical word of the word Messiah in Hebrew—identical. The word means anointed. So I bring forth Christ, my offspring, and you think only in terms of Jesus Christ. Go back; anoint Him! This is He. Go back into the word Samuel: and who is spoken of? That is He! Rise and anoint Him; He is my chosen one. 1 Samuel 16:12 states, "It is David." Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee. Psalms 2:7: He

is the anointed. It is David who appears. David is the anointed. Well then, who is Jesus? God Himself; you are He. For when God succeeds in giving you Himself, who gives you Himself, therefore you who began in time... He, your husband, your maker, is your husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name. The husband must leave everything and cleave to his wife until they become one. When you become one, he who was your maker, who so loved you, who became the husband—when you become one, you have an offspring. The offspring proves to you who you

are, but the offspring is God's only begotten Son, who is the anointed David. And then you see Him; everyone will bring forth only one, and that one is God's Son. People can't quite see the mystery that Jesus—the word Jesus means "Jehovah saves." That's what the word means; it is really Jehovah, and Jehovah's name is "I AM." And so, when the child appears, He is the Son of I AM. In the Old Testament, it's revealed to us in the most marvelous way, but man can't quite believe the word "Jesse" means "I AM." We have all kinds

of Jesses in the world; people name themselves Jesse—Jesse this, Jesse that, Jesse that—and to them, it's a name. The word Jesse is "I AM." Well, whose son are you? "I am the son of Jesse." That's what David said. And who is Jesse? "I AM." So when you come forward, you come forward because He so gave you Himself. You are one with God. But how will I know it? Wait; just wait a little while, and then a child will be brought from you. When the child comes, you'll know him; He was always the Son of God;

now He's your son. Therefore, you are God. So the purpose of this whole fabulous, wonderful drama is to bring forth His predetermined purpose, and the purpose is to give Himself to me, to you, to all of us, as though there were no others in the world—just you and God in the beginning and finally only you as God. That's the great sacrifice—He completely gives Himself to you. There aren't two anymore. The only Heaven is your son bearing witness of your fatherhood, and the son is David. But in the meanwhile, we apply the principle of His law:

Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord; for in all that he does, he prospers. The law is conditional, no respecter of persons. You could be the wisest, the loveliest, and the kindest person in the world; you begin to feel sorry for yourself, and you're entering the state that will bear the fruit of that state. You'll have every reason in the world to feel sorry for yourself. Don't envy anyone; they're only in a state. They're either in that state deliberately, knowingly, or they entered it unwittingly. I ask you to enter every

state knowingly. You can be healthy; you can be wealthy; you can be famous; and you can be anything in this world. And there is no man in the world, based upon the state that he occupies today, who is worthy of your admiration. No person in the world. Someone may be in a state where he's acclaimed as a great person; it's only a state. And people bow before the state and make of it a god. There's only one God, and His name is "I AM." So, someone goes by; I have seen it. A few years ago,

in San Francisco, may I tell you I admire General MacArthur—marvelous to me! He's a grand, wonderful man. I admire him as a true great American and a leader of men, no question about it. He entered this country after years abroad. A friend of mine in San Francisco, a very able lawyer, acted like a little child of about three. You've never seen such devotion, such complete hypnosis. When the General drove by, the crowd was hailing him for what he'd done for our country in the last war and in the first war. But this man, he would

have followed him right straight to a gallows and put his neck in place of the General. You've never seen such worshipfulness, and I wondered—I said to myself, what is it all about? He's been coming to my meetings for years, and he can't see a state moving by. Recognize the state of greatness. Recognize a state, but to identify the individual as the state? He could tomorrow fall from that state, and the same one will wonder what happened to his hero, not knowing it was a state. Where is Stalin? Where is Hitler? Where is Goering? Mention all

of them, through Hell, with all their statues and cities and towns named after them, to be perpetuated forever. Suddenly, the state is vacated, and the little occupant is decapitated. These are all states. So don't worship any being in this world; worship only God. And God is really your husband. Love the man whose name you bear; love the woman who bears your name. But in the end, they are shadows of the relationship of God and man; these are only shadows. Your real husband is God, and He's more faithful than any man in this world could ever

be to you. And so, they are married for 50 years and sired many. I think of one mentioned earlier; so after 30-odd years, leaving behind his many children, he marries another one who has four children. No criticism; perfectly all right. His father outlived his mother by a couple of years, and then he married a widow that he'd known through the years. Perfectly all right. And so, he married her. God will never marry anyone other than you, but no one in this world He loves more than He loves you, and you are individually His only love.

That's the mystery. He could never divorce you for another, and in His life—because He is life itself—you could never die. He is life. He is wedded to you, and he is so wedded to you that he's determined to prove to you his love in the beginning of his son. When he brings his son, for it's your son, your boy, and strangely enough, in that little phrase "one person in Christ Jesus," a phrase used in Matthew, you're his father, for God is a father. The heart of a father, though he picks you out as his bride,

when he completes the process, you are he. But he wasn't a bride; he was a father. That's the mystery. He transforms you into himself, and he was, before he wedded you, a father. And so he transforms you, his bride. You are his emanation, yet his wife till the sleep of death is over. When the sleep of death is over, you're transformed into him, and he was, before he wedded you, a father. And so you are a father, and there is your son. Now let us go into the silence. Once, in an idle interval at sea,

I meditated on the perfect state and wondered what I would be were I of two pure eyes to behold iniquity. If to me all things were pure, and were I without condemnation, as I became lost in this fiery brooding, I found myself lifted above the dark environment of the senses. So intense was the feeling that I felt myself a being of fire, dwelling in a body of air. Voices, as from a heavenly chorus, with the exaltation of those who had been conquerors in a conflict with death, were singing, "He is risen! He is risen!" Intuitively,

I knew they meant me. Then I seemed to be walking in the night. I soon came upon a scene that might have been the ancient pool of Bethesda, for in this place lay a great multitude of impotent folk—blind, halt, withered—waiting not for the moving of the water, as of tradition, but waiting for me. As I came near, without thought or effort on my part, they were one after the other molded, as by the magician of the beautiful, eyes, hands, feet—all missing members were drawn from some invisible reservoir and molded in harmony with that perfection which

I felt springing within me. When all were made perfect, the chorus exalted, "It is finished." Then the scene dissolved, and I awoke. I know this vision was the result of my intense meditation upon the idea of perfection, for my meditations invariably bring about union with the state contemplated. I had been so completely absorbed within the idea that for a while I had become what I contemplated, and the high purpose with which I had for that moment identified myself drew the companionship of high things and fashioned the vision in harmony with my inner nature. The ideal

with which we are united works by association of ideas to awaken a thousand moods, to create a drama in keeping with the central idea. I first discovered this close relationship of moods to vision when I was aged about seven. I became aware of a mysterious life quickening within me, like a stormy ocean of frightening might. I always knew when I would be united with this hidden identity, for my senses were expectant on the nights of these visitations, and I knew beyond all doubt that before morning I would be alone with immensity. I so dreaded these

visitations that I would lie awake until my eyes, from sheer exhaustion, closed. As my eyes closed in sleep, I was no longer solitary but smitten through and through with another being, and yet I knew it to be myself. It seemed older than life, yet nearer to me than my boyhood. If I tell what I discovered on these nights, I do so not to impose my ideas on others but that I may give hope to those who seek the law of life. I discovered that my expectant mood worked as a magnet to unite me with this

great me while my fears made it appear as a stormy sea. As a boy, I conceived of this mysterious self as might, and in my union with it, I felt its majesty as a stormy sea, which drenched me, then rolled and tossed me as a helpless wave. As a man, I conceived of it as love, and myself the son of it. Now what a love enfolds me! It is a mirror; to all, whatever we conceive it as being, that it is to us. I believe it to be the center through which all the threads of

the universe are drawn. Therefore, I have altered my values and changed my ideas so that they now depend upon and are in harmony with this sole cause of all that is. It is to me that changeless reality which fashions circumstances in harmony with our concepts of ourselves. My mystical experiences have convinced me that there is no way to bring about the outer perfection we seek other than by the transformation of ourselves. As soon as we succeed in transforming ourselves, the world will melt magically before our eyes and reshape itself in harmony with that which our

transformation affirms. Two other visions I will tell because they bear out the truth of my assertion that we, by intensity of love and hate, become what we contemplate. Once, with closed eyes made radiant from brooding, I meditated on the eternal question, "Who am I?" and felt myself gradually dissolve into a shoreless sea of vibrant light, imagination passing beyond all fear of death. In this state, nothing existed but myself, a boundless ocean of liquid light. Never have I felt more intimate with being. How long this experience lasted, I do not know, but my return to Earth

was accompanied by a distinct feeling of crystallizing again. Into human shape at another time, I lay on my bed and, with my eyes shut as in sleep, I brooded on the mystery of Buddha. In a little while, the dark caverns of my brain began to grow luminous. I seemed to be surrounded by luminous clouds, which emanated from my head as fiery, pulsating rings. I saw nothing but these lum rings for a time. Then, there appeared before my eyes a rock of quartz crystal. While I gazed upon it, the crystal broke into pieces, which invisible hands

quickly shaped into the living Buddha. As I looked on this meditative figure, I saw that it was myself. I was the living Buddha whom I contemplated. A light like the sun glowed from this living image of myself with increasing intensity until it exploded. Then, the light gradually faded, and once more I was back within the blackness of my room. Out of what sphere or treasury of design came this being mightier than human? His garments, the crystal, the light—if I saw, heard, and moved in a world of real beings when I seemed to myself to be

walking in the night, when the lame, the halt, the blind mind were transformed in harmony with my inner nature, then I am justified in assuming that I have a more subtile body than the physical, a body that can be detached from the physical and used in other spheres. For to see, to hear, to move are functions of an organism, however ethereal. If I brood over the alternative that my psychic experiences were self-begotten fantasy, no less am I moved to wonder at this mightier self who flashes on my mind a drama as real as those I

experience when I am fully awake. On these fiery meditations, I have entered again and again, and I know beyond all doubt that both assumptions are true. Housed within this form of Earth is a body attuned to a world of light, and I have, by intense meditation, lifted it as with a magnet through the skull of this dark house of flesh. The first time I awoke the fires within me, I thought my head would explode. There was intense vibration at the base of my skull, then sudden oblivion of all. Then I found myself clothed in a

garment of light and attached by a silvery elastic cord to the slumbering body on the bed. So exalted were my feelings that I felt related to the stars. In this garment, I roamed spheres more familiar than Earth, but found that, as on Earth, conditions were molded in harmony with my nature. Self-begotten fantasy, I hear you say. No more so than the things of Earth. I am an immortal being conceiving myself as man and forming worlds in the likeness and image of my concept of self. What we imagine that we are, by our imagination we have

created this dream of life, and by our imagination we will re-enter that eternal world of light, becoming that which we were before we imagined the world. In the economy, nothing is lost; we cannot lose anything save by descent from the sphere where the thing has its natural life. There is no transforming power in death, and whether we are here or there, we fashion the world that surrounds us by the intensity of our imagination and feeling, and we illuminate or darken our lives by the concepts we hold of ourselves. Nothing is more important to us than

our conception of ourselves, and especially is this true of our concept of the deep hidden one within us. Those that help or hinder us, whether they know it or not, are the servants of that law which shapes outward circumstances in harmony with our inner nature. It is our conception of ourselves which frees or constrains us, though it may use material agencies to achieve its purpose. Because life molds the outer world to reflect the inner arrangement of our mind, there is no way of bringing about the outer perfection we seek other than by the transformation of

ourselves. No help cometh from without; the hills to which we lift our eyes are those of an inner range. It is thus to our own consciousness that we must turn as to the only reality, the only foundation on which all phenomena can be explained. We can rely absolutely on the justice of this law to give us only that which is of the nature of ourselves. To attempt to change the world before we change our concept of ourselves is to struggle against the nature of things. There can be no outer change until there is first an

inner change; as within, so without. I am not advocating philosophical indifference when I suggest that we should imagine ourselves as already that which we want to be, living in a mental atmosphere of greatness rather than using physical means and arguments to bring about the desired change. Everything we do, unaccompanied by a change of consciousness, is but futile readjustment of surfaces. However we toil or struggle, we can receive no more than our subconscious assumptions affirm. To protest against anything which happens to us is to protest against the law of our being and our rulership over our

own destiny. The circumstances of my life are too closely related to my conception of myself not to have been launched by my own spirit from some magical storehouse of my being. If there is pain to me in these happenings, I should look within myself for the cause, for I am moved here and there and made to live in a world in harmony with my concept of myself. Intense meditation brings about a union with the state contemplated, and during this union, we see visions, have experiences, and behave in keeping with our change of consciousness. This shows

us that a transformation of consciousness will... Result in a change of environment and behavior; however, our ordinary alterations of consciousness, as we pass from one state to another, are not transformations because each of them is so rapidly succeeded by another in the reverse direction. But whenever one state grows so stable as to definitely expel its rivals, then that central habitual state defines the character and is a true transformation. To say that we are transformed means that ideas previously peripheral in our consciousness now take a central place and form the habitual center of our energy. All

wars prove that violent emotions are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. Every great conflict has been followed by an era of materialism and greed, in which the ideals for which the conflict ostensibly was waged are submerged. This is inevitable because war evokes hate, which impels a descent in consciousness from the plane of the ideal to the level where the conflict is waged. If we would become as emotionally aroused over our ideals as we become over our dislikes, we would ascend to the plane of our ideals as easily as we now descend to the level of

our hates. Love and hate have a magical transforming power, and we grow through their exercise into the likeness of what we contemplate. By intensity of hatred, we create in ourselves the character we imagine in our enemies. Qualities die for want of attention, so the unlovely states might best be rubbed out by imagining beauty for ashes and joy for mourning (Isaiah 61:3), rather than by direct attacks on the state from which we would be free. "Whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, think on these things" (Philippians 4:8), for we become that with which we are

on rapport. There is nothing to change but our concept of self. Humanity is a single being, in spite of its many forms and faces, and there is in it only such seeming separation as we find in our own being when we are dreaming. The pictures and circumstances we see in dreams are creations of our own imagination and have no existence save in ourselves. The same is true of the pictures and circumstances we see in this dream of life; they reveal our concepts of ourselves. As soon as we succeed in transforming self, our world will dissolve

and reshape itself in harmony with that which our change affirms. The universe which we study with such care is a dream, and we, the dreamers of the dream—eternal dreamers dreaming non-eternal dreams—one day, like Nebuchadnezzar, we shall awaken from the dream, from the nightmare in which we fought with demons, to find that we really never left our eternal home, that we were never born and have never died save in our dream.