Baptism Into One Body

Truth cannot be told so as to be understood and not be believed. It is my hope that I will tell the truth of scripture, for that’s what he meant. When he spoke of the truth he meant the word of God, no other truth. But it cannot be told so that it is understood and not be believed. Tonight, we’ll take a few words of God and try to tell it so that it is understood. But, may I tell you, whether it is understood now or not I know from experience there are multiple ways of still telling that truth; for he’s planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated.

So here, we have this in scripture, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Then we are told, “I baptize with the water for repentance, but there will come one after me who is mightier than I; and he will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (Mat 3:11). So there are two baptisms spoken of in scripture. It hasn’t a thing to do with the little baptism that you and I experienced when we didn’t have any awareness, as little infants, when some minister or priest baptized us. It hasn’t a thing to do with that. The first baptism is for repentance. So I must now explain so you can understand what is meant by repentance. And if you accept it, and put it into practice, and then prove it in performance, then you are really baptized for repentance. Repentance means “a change of mind, a radical change of attitude towards life.” That’s what it really means and nothing else.

A chap wrote me this week—he isn’t here tonight—but he said, “Every year we have in Anaheim this convention for all those who deal in computers, and my company is now demonstrating a million-dollar computer. It was delivered on Friday to be ready for the opening of the show on Tuesday, Tuesday morning. On Sunday, here the computer, there are parts missing and parts that are not functioning. Now we have sub-contractors all over the country, all over the nation, who made these parts that are now not functioning. When I arrived, they sent me over to the convention on Monday morning. When I arrived there, I think I was the only one calm and collected; they all expected a disaster. Here is a million-dollar system. But I simply began to apply what I heard concerning Imagination, and I simply imagined that it was Tuesday morning and everything was going perfectly. Then I began to look around to find out who made these parts that are not functioning and to my delight, within fourteen miles of the center were the two companies that made these particular parts. So they came over and repaired them. We got all things together and it opened on time, and was a perfect demonstration of this million-dollar system.

“Another one was, a salesman sold a computer of ours. It was an old model and this one was down in the basement or in the storeroom, and no one took the time to check it out—take an inventory of the parts, all the things. Here comes the day of delivery…almost the day of delivery. Again I went into this application of this principle and applied my Imagination towards this end that everything was perfect. And here were two most vital parts that were missing. We called all the states, because there are sub-contractors all over the nation, and not one knew anything about these missing parts. Here I sat lost in contemplation, seeing the end. The salesman who made the sale came into the place and he saw a little package not more than ten feet from the computer. He picked it up and he said, “Here are parts…all kinds of parts”…and there were the missing parts! No one to this moment knows how they got there. There they were, within ten feet of the computer.”

Now, here is a man who has been baptized with the water—that is the psychological truth of this law. Water is the psychological application of truth; then comes the wine. We have the stone, the literal…where play it out, cut off the head of a bull and then that is sacrificing to God, and you do things, literally, on the outside, that’s the stone. Then comes the psychological interpretation of this literal fact and it’s called “water” in scripture. He comes into the fields to water the flocks and he rolls away the stone from the top of the well. He draws the water and waters his flock; then he rolls back the stone.Now comes one who turns the water into wine, and shows you not only the psychological interpretation of scripture but that one must see the whole vast world as a psychological drama. You’ve heard it said you mustn’t commit adultery, but I tell you to lust after a woman is to commit it. And so, to restrain the impulse isn’t good enough. The minute you lusted that was the act. The drama is psychological and you are setting things in motion by your imaginal acts. No matter how you restrain the impulse, that isn’t good enough. The impulse to steal was the act. The impulse to hurt that was the act. You may be restrained because you are afraid to carry out the act. You may be afraid of the consequences. If you could get away with it, then you would do it. But that’s not good enough. One mustn’t even have the impulse to steal. One must discover who one really is and therefore create from within oneself.

But you first get the baptism of water. You’ll find that in the 3rd chapter of Matthew. And here he baptizes with the water for forgiveness. And forgiveness—or repentance it’s called in scripture—tests mans’ ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite.I see you in want, can I so persuade myself that you are not in want, that you are affluent? To the degree that I can persuade myself that you are the person that I would like you to be, to that degree I have simply put in to practice this baptismal by water. I have heard it, now I’ve got to apply it. As I apply it to the point of proving it in performance, well then, I am actually baptized in the real sense of the word.

But now comes the next baptism and that is something entirely different. It’s not a thing that I do or you do or anyone does. Having applied this repentance and having lived by it, then we are called one by one by one to unite into a single body who is God. So we are told, “By one Spirit we were baptized into one body” as you read it in 1st Corinthians, the 12th chapter. By one Spirit we are baptized into one body. Now let me share with you this baptism: We are taken in Spirit. Now you may think I am taken out in some fabulous inter-stellar space. It feels that way, may I tell you, it feels as though you’ve been taken on an enormous journey outward, but it all is within one; it’s not without at all. “All that we behold, though it appears without, it is within, in our Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow” (Blake, Jer., Plt.71). So I’m not really being taken out of myself at all. But I feel the sensation is one of a long, long journey. When you come into the presence of the risen Lord, he asks you a simple question. You answer it quite simply, as though prompted from some depth of your own being. You can’t make a mistake. He embraces you and you become one. “By one Spirit we are baptized into one body.” So, all who have been baptized into this one body have put on Christ. All who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. From then on you are he. Mortal eye can’t see your garment, because no mortal eye can see the body of Christ. But you know it, and you feel it, and you wear it every moment of the twenty-four-hour day.

And so, if you tell the story, some may hear you and they are so filled with their own preconceived misconceptions of Christ that they will resist you. I’ll show you this way…my wife’s older sister…and she’s a darling…we love each other, respect each other, but she said to me many, many years ago, “I don’t believe one word that you teach.” I said, “Perfectly alright, Al, I love you anyway.” She said, “I love you too. First of all, you’re kind to my sister, I know you love her, and for this I love you.” Well, that was it. “But I don’t believe one word you said.” What she meant was this, she does not believe in survival. To her, though she calls herself a good Christian, she means that one does not survive save in their offspring. You are survived in your children and your grandchildren and so on, but you, the individual no. I said, “I have news for you, nothing dies. Not only you do not die, but the little flower that blooms once blooms forever. You pick it, put it into your lapel, you wear it for awhile, and discard it, and it blooms forever. It cannot die. “I am a God of the living, not the dead.” Well, that did not go down with her. No matter how clearly I thought I had told her, she did not believe me…for this is how you get over to those who on one level can take it.

My secretary, Jack Butler, died quite suddenly in the year 1948, ’48 or ’49, I think it was ’48, yes, ’48, for he was born in ’98 and he was just fifty when he died. So I went back…I was here in California at the time, here on a lecture tour, still living in New York City. Then I got this cable this morning, and we packed up, and we returned to New York City. I took care of his funeral in Haverstraw, New York. Well, many months later, six or seven months later, I knew I was out of this garment, I was fully awake, out of this garment, and here is my friend Jack, restored to life and a young boy in his twenties. Jack was fifty and he looked much older when he died, but he died when he was fifty. But he looked much older. However, now he is in his twenties, completely restored to a newness that is fantastic. And here is my sister-in-law, Al, and Al said to me to open up the conversation, “You know, I still do not believe what you teach.” I said to her, “Well, how can you say that when you see Jack?” She said to me, “What has that to do with it?” I said to her, “Do you not know that Jack died, Jack died in August of last year, and I came back and took care of the funeral? And he’s buried, the body was buried in Haverstraw, New York?” And Al’s face took on a peculiar expression, one of complete amazement. She knows I’m telling the truth and she is seeing Jack. She always denied that one survived and she’s looking at Jack…that face with that peculiar expression, one of complete bewilderment, because it’s in complete conflict with what she always believed, in complete conflict with what I teach and always taught her.

As she looked at Jack, now Jack said to me, “Who is dead?” I said, “Jack, you’re not dead but you died, you know.” “Oh,” he said, “that’s stupid.” “Yes, you died. You died in the month of August of last year, and I came back from California and took care of your funeral and gave you a lovely Catholic funeral. You’re buried, you aren’t cremated, you’re buried in a Catholic cemetery in Haverstraw, New York.” “Oh,” he said, “you’re stupid! Who’s dead?” I said, “You’re not dead but you died.” Then I said to Jack, “Come over here” and he came ___(??) as he always would. Then I said to Al, “Now Al, watch this” and I put my hand on his thigh. I said, “You see, my hand doesn’t go through his thigh. He’s solid. If I cut him right now he’ll bleed. He will hurt as you would hurt. He is solid and he is real.” With this, Jack took my hand, my hand is on his thigh, and this is what he did: “Take your hand off me” [slapping hand away], just what he would do were he here. There is no transforming power in death and Jack did not know he had died. May I tell you, not everyone knows the transition. Some take years to discover it. They see themselves restored to a newness that is unbelievable, but they do not know it. And, Al was standing there, my sister-in-law. When she came back to this world it wasn’t even to her a dream. You don’t always bring back your dreams. Had she brought it back it would be in the form of a dream to her. I was fully awake. I knew exactly what I was doing every moment of time. Now, you’ll say, what did it do to Al? May I tell you, today she does believe in survival. She doesn’t know that was the beginning.

So, when you are sent to tell it you’ll find an opportunity whether it be on this sphere, that sphere or another sphere. But you are teaching morning, noon and night and telling the message of the one who sent you. So he said, “I am in them and thou art in me, that they may become one, perfectly one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and that thou hast loved them even as thou hast loved me” (John 17:23). No difference. There’s only one body, only one Spirit. So when he embraces you, it’s the same love that was the embrace for everyone that was embraced and incorporated into that one body…one body, one Spirit.

So here, as you put this to the test you’re simply explaining that you are baptized. Whether you went before some little baptismal pond and got water on your hair or not, it hasn’t a thing to do with it. That’s a symbol. And they give that importance, but that is not the importance. You never need see the inside of a church. But you could hear of the law of repentance. Repent…repent to do what?…change your attitude toward everything in this world that displeases you, and remain fixed in the changed attitude, and the change will mold itself in your outer world and prove to you that you know what you are doing. You are creating on this level.

But the day will come you also will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now, it said, “There stands one…among you stands one whom you do not know. I myself did not know him,” said John. “But I saw the Holy Spirit descend upon him as a dove, and it remained on him. And he who sent me said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Holy Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:26-34). Now that word “with” is the preposition “in” in Greek. He baptizes not with something on the outside, pours water on you; he baptizes, he incorporates you into himself, the Holy Spirit, that’s how he baptizes. He baptizes in, not with but in the Holy Spirit. He embraces you and you are completely incorporated and at that moment you are he, you are not another. Not a little thing in the body of Christ, you are the body of Christ. “He who is baptized into Christ has put on Christ” and you wear him. Then comes the unfolding of the picture and then you know exactly who you are when God’s only begotten son calls you Father. Then you know exactly who you are…and you feel this being that you saw. You stand in the presence of the risen Christ, you are incorporated into the body; and when he calls you Father, you feel yourself this being. Not some little thing, but yet no loss of identity. And this is this wonderful story of baptism.

So go and tell them the mystery of baptism. And, it is true if you tell it with understanding, for truth told so that it is understood must be believed. It cannot be told so that it is understood and not be believed. If today their prejudice bars them for a moment in grasping it, wait. An opportunity will come tonight or tomorrow night in another level of your being. Now, if I dwell in you and the Father dwells in me, is not the Father in you? So “I dwell in them and thou in me.” Well, if you are in me and I am in them, well then, the Father is in them, and are we not one? Will we not see the same being, the same infinite one who will call us Father?

Here, when someone can write me this story…he’s only been coming the last few weeks—he just came south from the northern part of our state—and here in just a short interval of time he has so believed it that he puts it into practice when everyone expected disaster. Now hasn’t he been baptized? So what water did we use? I didn’t put any water on his head, simply told him the truth by taking the literal story and giving it a psychological interpretation. And he, believing the psychological meaning of scripture, he puts it into practice and begins to live imaginally—seeing the whole drama as an imaginal act and not a physical act.

So the world sees it as a physical act and they’ll throw it to him morning, noon and night, “But do you not believe that Jesus Christ, a man, lived?” And then you ___(??), and you know they cannot for one moment, at that moment, receive it. If you tell them exactly who Jesus Christ is, they’ll run. If you speak of a cosmic Christ buried in every person in the world and that cosmic Christ in man is God the Father, and that he is in all and through all, and yet you are he, there aren’t two, just one. That one God and Father of all is housed in you individually, and that one God will one day unveil himself in you, and you are he. Not you and God, you as God…just the same being…and his son is calling you Father. Yet you are clothed in this little garment, limited by all the limitations of the flesh, and you walk the earth.

Now, a friend of mine gave me last Monday night a perfectly marvelous poem of D. H. Lawrence. It’s a long poem…Huxley was a very dear friend of his…and many a day we discussed it. He said to me, “Of all the men I have ever known no one excites me more than D. H. Lawrence.” He said, “He was the most unusual person. You know, Neville, he could actually, in the most convincing detail, persuade you that he knows what it is to be like a tree, to be like an animal, to be like a wave, to be like the moon, and he could persuade you in the most convincing manner. He had his favorite cow in New Mexico on his farm. It was called Black Eyed Susan or Black Eyed Baby, one of the two. And he would actually describe to me…he said he could put himself inside the skin of the animal and explain to me the moods and the dumb almost the unthinking thought, a sub-human way of thinking, in that animal. Now, here is a man who could milk the cow, he could sew, he could embroider, he could darn a sock, he was a master worker in woodwork. He could do everything. I never saw any man with more talents…the great poet that he was…and yet, strangely enough, he could sit and do absolutely nothing, and thoroughly enjoy doing nothing. Yet the man had so many talents. I’ve never known so many talents. He didn’t putter in sewing, when he sewed it was perfect. When he darned it was perfect. When he embroidered it was perfect embroidery. He could take a mat and make a rug in no time flat. He was perfect in his concentration. Take a piece of wood and turn out a table, a chair…and everything was perfect. Then comes his poetry. Then comes his novels. And then, to do nothing.”

Well, my friend gave me this poem of his, which was shared with him. It’s called “The New Heavens and Earth.” In it he said, “I was so weary of the world, I was so weary of it all, and then came death, and I died.” Now he describes what he calls resurrection, which I know is misnamed; it’s restoration in his case, it was not resurrection, for he speaks of the body. He said, “A body as of before, only with a newness beyond the knowledge of newness. A newness that is unaccountable, you can’t account for such newness. For here is an old body and then you find yourself in a new body.” He’s telling the truth…like Jack, a boy in his twenties when he died at fifty and he looked so much older. When I saw Jack six, seven months later, here is this boy in his twenties, completely renewed…a newness beyond knowledge of newness.How could it be? He went through the ground. About seven months later decomposition was way advanced…and you can take someone in a matter of one hour and turn him into ash. And they give you a little urn that day…and what you knew as a friend, 170, 200 pounds prior to that moment is now a little bit in a can. And there you’ll meet him in the worlds into which I go and here he is. How is he renewed? The body is real and it is solid, and it breathes as you breathe, and it grows old as you grow old here. It has its problems there as you have them here. It goes through the same thing all over again.

Faith, if it doesn’t awaken, well then, it doesn’t even know the story of baptism, how the story of life is psychological.Jack did not know it then; he didn’t know it here. Jack came to all my meetings, but he only was interested in seeing people. He refused to assume any obligations to society; he wouldn’t get married. But, may I tell you, he was quite a man and his eyes were all over the place looking for the ladies. And they loved him, this wonderful lad, born in New York City of Irish parents. He was quite the Irish boy, full of blarney, and they all loved Jack. But he would not assume any obligations of marriage, for he would run in the opposite direction. He’s the same Jack. He does not know now that life is psychological. There’s no transforming power in death. It’s a renewal. It’s a miracle. How does it work? I see the ash, this was Jack, and here is Jack. Now how did he get that body?

Now, D. H. Lawrence brings it up, he said, “I was not born again. This is not born again; this is resurrection and risen.” But he admits he was not born again. He didn’t go through any woman’s womb. He finds himself restored, and calls it resurrection and risen. But I can tell Lawrence he is not resurrected but he is restored. You’re restored to life. Everyone is restored to life instantly…and a newness that is unaccountable. These are his words, “An unaccountable newness” where he finds himself a new being, a newness, a life beyond life he’s so alive; a newness beyond the knowledge of newness he is so new. No lost teeth, no lost hair, no lost anything. Everything is renewed and not one thing is missing.

How can it be when only a moment before…but people don’t reflect and think, “Well, I was ninety when I died and here I am twenty, well, how could it be? I didn’t go through the womb of woman and here I am restored to life, how is this thing possible?” Then, because the problems of life are upon us they go blindly on and they’ve got to pay rent too, and they must eat too, and they must do all the things you do here. It’s just like this world and he uses the word “the same, the same terrestrial world, not another.” It’s another world, he said, but it’s terrestrial, myself terrestrial, and yet a complete unaccountable newness.

But when you are resurrected it’s entirely different. On the heels of it comes the birth from above. Then when you take off this garment…and they can do what they want with it. They can send it to UCLA, let them cut it all into little pieces, and try to find out what made it tick. They won’t find it. It isn’t there at all. They can cremate it and put it into a little urn.As I said to my wife, Don’t you be stupid…the cheapest coffin, the cheapest funeral. If you can get it for a dollar, give a dollar. If they say the cheapest is $250, don’t pay $251. That extra ten dollars you go buy a nice bottle of liquor with it. But no, don’t pay one penny beyond what is the minimum and no darn fool urn sticking me here with a little urn saying this is Neville. That’s not Neville at all. So don’t put one penny beyond the absolute minimum and don’t let any of these high-pressure salesmen sell you one dollar more than it takes by law. Now if you’ve got to put me here and they will allow me to be shipped, well then, ship me, to stop that silly little yearly ___(??), ship me to Barbados and throw me in the sea. For I am not there…I’m instantly restored, but this time I am not in this world at all.

For, the world into which Jackie went is this world, a different section of time. The world into which all people go is this world…just like it, the same problems. That’s where D. H. Lawrence went. But the world into which the resurrected go is into the one body of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is heaven. And the whole thing is within you, may I tell you? You don’t go off there to get it, you awaken within that body. That’s your body, endowed with infinite creative power, an entirely different world __(??) where you are creating. Not the limitations of the flesh; no need for food as we understand it; no need for taking care of the normal functions of the body, they do not exist. It’s an entirely different body—a body of radiant light into which we shall all be incorporated, one by one, as planned.

So I tell you, if I could this night so tell the truth that it is understood, you could not fail to believe it. But if tonight something in you resists it, may I tell you, just like my sister-in-law Al, I will still catch you. For there are worlds within worlds within worlds and you will not be able to resist something like this. Her opposition was…she didn’t deny that there’s God the Father, God the Son—although she knew neither and her concepts of both were distorted—but she resisted the third fundamental of the Christian faith “life everlasting.” That she resisted completely. Yet she calls herself a pillar of the Christian church and attends church in ___(??), New Jersey. But, that one she could not understand and this day when Jack appeared and that face of utter, utter bewilderment…she knew I was telling the truth that Jack had died. But he didn’t know he had died because he’s so alive. He did not know he had died. In spite of his youth he didn’t know it.

Someone looking in the mirror and because they just came out of the beauty parlor, “Oh, isn’t it marvelous! Look. ten years off.” They’re so carried away with that ten years off they go through for the next, well, twenty-four hours, at least, ’til they sleep. And then, they’re in their mind’s eye ten years younger than they were the day before. Well, in this other world it is such a permanent state of youth that you never reflect upon “how did it happen?” because if you aren’t a philosopher here, you aren’t going to be one there. If you are not given to analysis here, you aren’t given to it there. There is no transforming power in death. So I can take something for granted, just take it, and not reflect upon it, and just act, well, it’s natural, it’s normal, I’ll do the same thing there.

And Jack lived that way. He dined with us every weekday, save the nights that we entertained. Didn’t come on Sunday nights, but every weeknight he dined with us. And no one could be more flattering to my wife than Jack. No matter what she prepared he would say, “Oh, Bill, this is the most marvelous” and he’d name it. And the next night, “This is the most wonderful” and he’d name it. Of course, he washed the dishes and I dried them. Then he died and then I had to take on his chores, so I washed and dried. He used to at least wash. So he departed and that __(??) him do what he did. But he was fun. No matter what Bill gave him, she could give him the hash of hashes, and he would eat and say, “Oh, this is the best hash in the world!” You couldn’t possibly put anything before him that he did not rave about. And so, he dined on us and with us, I would say, every night we didn’t entertain. Occasionally, he would come around a lunch hour and there was always something in the refrigerator, so Jack would…he couldn’t scramble an egg. He could do nothing when it comes to cooking. But he came home, and Bill is a marvelous cook, and that was our life for years with Jack.

Six months after, he didn’t know he was dead, because he isn’t. Can’t blame him, he isn’t dead. But he did not see the youth that I saw. He saw it, but he took it for granted. It never occurred to him that he had gone through what this world would call the gate of death. Hadn’t the slightest concept of it. So he goes blindly on and in time he’ll realize certain things that he must have gone through, but he hadn’t the knowledge of doing it. They found the body on the floor. He went home on a very hot summer’s day in New York City, when it was humid and maybe a hundred degrees; next morning the maid goes to clean the room and here’s Jack. So he had one stricture and he was gone. But if you are not given here to reflection in this world, and you don’t reflect upon things, why did this thing happen?—when something happens in your world, do you ask yourself why? Must have a cause. If you don’t do that here and see only outer causation and never an inner, well then, you aren’t going to do it there. And the whole vast world is a psychological world. When you accept it, you have been baptized; and it was the one called John who baptized you and brought it into being.

Now next week…I had a perfectly lovely letter that came today, perfectly marvelous. We’ll take that up on Monday and show this lady—I’m sure she knows but I’ll show her, and show a gentleman—what was the ___(??), and show this lady her story where I am involved in the dream. It’s perfectly marvelous.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

We have three more weeks, we’re closing on the 15th of December and returning here on the 8th of January. We’ll be closed in three weeks and will remain closed for three weeks, and from then on I’ll tell you as we go.

Are there any questions, please?

Q: (inaudible)

A:In any world, because they are just as solidly real there as you are here. The world is just like this, may I tell you, doesn’t differ one iota. It is just like this. You’ll find yourself renewed in some unaccountable way. Not reborn, renewed. You are conscious of who you are, all these things. It’s like going to a foreign land and you are so excited you don’t think of home, you just keep on going, seeing, doing all the things. And growing old, falling in love, being disappointed, being thrilled, and just as it happens here.

Q: We don’t have any attachment to this world, do we?

A: It is this world. It’s a different section of time in this world.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Oh, there are memories. The first time I spoke to Jack, Jack knew me and Jack knew Al. He wasn’t a stranger in my world; I wasn’t a stranger in Jack’s world. So he just took it for granted, why here is Nev, and then here is Al. He knew Al quite well. Al knew that Jack was my secretary. And then, when she first saw him she didn’t realize until I brought her attention to the fact that Jack had died. So, when I said, “You say you don’t believe in survival, you don’t believe in what I teach” and then I said to her, “Why then look at Jack, how can you say that when you see Jack?” Then she said to me quite innocently, “What has that to do with it?” Had I not arrested her attention and brought it up suddenly to the fact that Jack had died, she’d have gone blindly on. She would have seen Jack and gone on. Had she brought it back to memory in this world, she would have said, “You know, I dreamt of Jack Butler last night.” But I arrested her attention and focused it on the fact that Jack had died, and then she’s bewildered, she knew he did. Then I brought him over, put my hand on his thigh, and showed her that it was solid, it was real. And he didn’t even know that he had died. So on two sections of time brought together and they didn’t know. But I arrested their attention, because I was awake and in control. So I’m teaching.

I tell you I’ve been sent. Now, the world will say, that’s all nonsense…that stopped 2,000 years ago. There’s no such thing any 2,000 years ago, it’s always taking place. I stood in the presence of the risen Lord and he sent me to do what I’m doing. So when you read in scripture, “He who sees me”—if you really see me—“sees him who sent me.” But you have to see me, the one that I really am. If you see the one I am, you’ll see the one who sent me—and that is the Father of all who sent me—and I am he. But it doesn’t fit into the priesthoods of the world’s concept of the mystery of Christ, so they will think this is blasphemy. Well, let them think what it is. They’re sound asleep anyway, doesn’t really matter. Meet them in the next world, they’re just as sound asleep as they are here. They just do not know this great mystery: God in man is awakening, and when he awakes, the man in whom he awakes is God. There’s nothing but God. He awakes in you and at that moment you are he.

So the fundamental sin is not to believe that I am he. “Unless you believe that I am he, you die in your sins” that’s what we’re told (John 8:24). And one day you will know it. You can accept it from one who can so present it that he makes it clear to your understanding. If it is clear to your understanding and it’s not cluttered up with previous misconceptions, you will accept it. And then suddenly one day you awake. It comes quite suddenly—no one can tell you when—but it comes just out of the blue like thief in the night…and then you awake.After that it doesn’t matter when you go, really, because you do love…the God of love embraced you. Because you do love, those in your immediate circle you would like to cushion them, even though they are asleep, cushion them with the little world of Caesar’s things so that they won’t have the pressure placed upon them tomorrow. But as far as your departure, it makes no difference to you at all. Just leave them as much cushion as possible, because the world is a world of blows. And you can’t stop the expression of that love to cushion with some of the things that Caesar demands in this world.

Outside of that, as far as you’re concerned you feel just as Paul said it in his letter, “I desire to depart and be with Christ”—be as he is; for when he departs he is Christ—“but it is far better that I remain in the body because of your need,” that’s what he’s saying, and he tells it over and over and over. And so, a year later or a few years later then he departs. Where can he go but into the body of the awakened Lord? There’s no place for him to go, he’s already there, while he walks this earth. At that moment in time he’s going to take off this garment and there he is. The sleeping world will say, “He’s dead, poor thing, and he so believed and so taught, and now look at him.” They don’t know the garment from the man. They can’t discriminate between the garment that he’s wearing and he who wears it. They think the garment is the man…when he moves into an entirely different world, which is one body, which eventually will incorporate every being in the world in that one body. By one Spirit all were baptized into one body, we’re told.

Goodnight.