Eternal States

Tonight the subject is “Eternal States.” You’ll find this the most practical teaching in the world of Caesar. It may not make sense…I only ask you to accept provisionally and try it, test it. I know that if you really test it, you’ll prove it. We start on the premise that “Man is all Imagination and God is Man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of Man is the Imagination, and that is God Himself” (Blake, Ann. Berkley; Laocoon).

Now, when we speak of eternal states, let me first define what I mean by states. A state is a body of beliefs. You sit quietly with yourself and ask yourself some very pertinent questions, “Who am I?” You may be wrong in the answer, but “Who am I? Where am I? What am I?” and all these questions you ask self, and they form a body of beliefs. You don’t see them, you believe in them, but you don’t see what the mystic sees when you answer these questions. Paul said, “We do not look to the outer things, we look to things unseen; for the outer things are transient, the unseen things are eternal.” If your eye is not opened, you do not see these personified beliefs of yours. They form a state and then completely control your behavior in this world. Any modification in a state will result in a modification in the circumstances of life. The slightest modification within your body of beliefs will result in a change in the out-picturing of your world. Everything is personified if you have the eyes to see it.So Blake said, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy” and “By this, you will see, that I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil, when it leaves paradise following the serpent” (Vis. Last Judg., Pp. 91-92).

Now, he uses the word “mercy” only as one who sees the states ever uses it. Just imagine, eternity exists and all things, not a few things but all things; you can’t conceive of a situation, can’t conceive of anything that does not already exist in eternity. He doesn’t call that creation. “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation which was an act of mercy. Now, before we go into this practical side tonight, let us show you what he meant by mercy. Here you seem so alive all of you and you go home tonight and expect to find the same place that you left when you came here, and it all seems so real and everything here is so alive, everything is so alive. If you could come with me, I would show you that it isn’t; you are the operant power and you make it alive. “Where Man is not Nature is barren”…it’s dead. So when we say eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation, which was an act of mercy, he meant that everything that you see in this world is a part of the eternal structure of the universe. But it’s dead, really dead. You come upon it, but you don’t know that you’re the operant power, and so you enter a state and the state becomes animated, and you’re lost in your own animation, and think it is independent of your perception of it. You look upon it and you don’t for one moment believe you are causing the animation that you are perceiving.

Now, what does he mean by an act of mercy? Here you and I are embedded in this world of death, embedded in it. We are living souls destined to be life-giving Spirits, but until we are life-giving Spirits we are simply living souls. We animate what we perceive! He said, “Oh, miserable man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” Well, there’s no power in the world that can deliver you or anyone in this world from this power of death, this body of death but God. Here are the words of Peter, “Blessed be the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ! By his”—now he’s not speaking of Jesus Christ, he’s speaking of God—“by his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). Now you read it and without the mystic’s vision of what is taking place you’re completely lost. What is he talking about? He speaks of “by his great mercy”…only the act of mercy can do it. Well, what happens? You and I embedded in this world of eternal death, animating dead forms, and believing them to be actually independent of our perception of them; and then one moment in time this great mercy awakens Jesus Christ within me. Were he not buried in me he could not emerge from me. So, “I carry in my body,” said Paul, “the death of Jesus…always carrying in my body the death of Jesus” (2 Cor. 4:10). Here, we are the coffins, the tombs in which he is buried…and God awakens in us as us…and that delivers us from this body of death. But until we are delivered from this body of death, you listen carefully how to live in it and adjust to this body of death. It is a dead body!

Before we go further, let me share with you now an experience of a friend, who is here tonight. He said, “I saw a semi-circle of a dozen or more women. I would say they were all in their seventies. They were a pathetic sight. Here they were seated on these spindly wooden chairs, holes in their faded sweaters and skirts. To see this horrible picture of despair…then suddenly one rose, retired to the back, and instantly scenery came in appropriate to what was about to take place. And here was this star of the past singing as no one today sings, and you realize why she is a legend, why this stardom was placed upon her. You never heard anything so great…everything was perfect. When she was through she returned to the chair. There she sat, and returned to the holes in the sweater and the faded, faded horrible looking drab apparel. One after the other rose, went back, and the appropriate scene. Those who danced, music came; those who had to act then the supporting cast came into view equal to the need, and everything was perfect. But one, the most pathetic of all, held my attention, and she seemed to be at the end. I looked at her and she opened her purse. She knew she would find nothing in it. She opened the purse…not a coin, not a penny…this cheap little, well a five and ten cent store purse. She opened a compact, no lipstick, and it was all chipped, the whole thing was chipped off. It was really a pathetic sight.

“Then came her turn. Instead of watching her, as I did the others, I concentrated on her purse and that compact. In my Imagination I brought before my mind’s eye many shade of lipstick. I discarded one after the other and found the most lovely red which I thought would be perfect for her. In my Imagination I imagined it there and instantly before my view it was there as an objective fact. I knew intuitively that she needed fifty-four dollars. I had a vision of how she lived and where she lived. She could have used several hundred, but she actually needed fifty-four dollars, so in my Imagination I said, “Why not be generous and give her a thousand dollar bill. So I imagined a crisp thousand dollar bill, and instantly it is in her purse. I did not see her performance. She returned and took her chair. She opened the purse and the thrill when she saw the thousand dollar bill, but even greater when she opened the compact and found the lipstick; for here was a woman who had been far, far too long without a lipstick. And then I deliberately vanished that she may not see the benefactor.”

I can tell him…I’ve told him for the last few months —whether I’ve persuaded him or not, I do not know—he has already been born from above. When the angel of the Lord stood before him and tried to persuade him that he was born, he denied it. He was taking the literal fact of this birth as against the spiritual birth. He is exercising a power he will exercise in the not distant future. He’s young, just turned forty. Well, what is forty against three score and ten? So in the not distant future, he will be exercising this power in an entirely new age, a new age all together. But what thrilled me with his vision was his compassion, his mercy, his love. He didn’t do it so that he may be seen of the one who received it…he wanted to be unknown. That’s how God gives us his great gift: God gives us himself and remains unseen in the giving. So here, the part he’ll be playing in that heavenly body, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, is the most glorious thing to imagine.

Now we come down to the practical side of this teaching. Until we are born from above we are in the world of Caesar. And although we do not know we are in a world of death, let me tell you, you can apply it in this manner. You are the operant power; you are making everything alive in your world. Were it not for you, everything would be dead. You go into a world, you call it dream, and you are a protean being. You are Proteus playing all the parts, animating all the parts, making everyone come to life…but you don’t know it. You think he is another one, she’s another one, and you fight with shadows of your own being. But you are the being operating all the things in your world.

Now this is what I mean by claiming that “Man is all Imagination. God is Man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination and that is God himself.” That all things exist in the human Imagination and that all phenomena I don’t care what it is solely produced by imagining. Where there is no imagining the thing vanishes. If something is now in my world and I cease to control it or support it in depth, the thing disappears in my world. Therefore, any modification in my body of beliefs the thing is going to disappear from my world. So how do I go about adjusting to that which is? We made the claim, “Eternity exists and all things in eternity independent of creation,” and you saw what creation really meant, that act of mercy, where we, embedded in a world of death, by the act of mercy we are delivered from the body of death. And that is called the second birth in scripture, which is brought about through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, Jesus Christ is buried in us, so when he’s awakened in us, and he rises in us, then we are born from above. That’s our delivery from this body of death.

Until then, this is what we do. I stand here and I desire, say, to be elsewhere, to be in New York City. Well, I can’t afford the time or the money, I just can’t afford it. But I don’t ask myself if I can afford it. I don’t need the means; all I need is to know this principle. So in my Imagination when physically I sleep this night in Los Angeles, I assume that I am sleeping where I desire to sleep. So I say it is New York City. Well, if I were in New York City, how would I see the world? I would see Los Angeles 3,000 miles to the west of me. I would see everything related to that assumption. Now, an assumption is an act of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb. 11:6). “By faith we understand that the worlds were created by the word of God, so that things that are seen were made out of things which do not appear” (Heb. 11:3). So someone looking at me sleeping in my home tonight would not know where I really am sleeping. For, if I’m all Imagination, I must be where I am in Imagination. So looking at me physically and thinking that is Neville, they do not know what I am doing. So here, they are judging from appearances and they don’t know what I am doing. I am adjusting myself imaginally to that state that I desire to realize objectively, so I sleep in it. Tomorrow morning when I awake, do I expect to find myself physically in New York City? No, I find myself right here in Los Angeles. But if I did it with conviction and gave it all the sensory vividness of reality, beginning tomorrow morning when I rise in this city, things will move and move rapidly to compel me to make the journey. I do not do it lightly any more, because I did it lightly as an experiment and it worked and it was not what I wanted. When I stumbled upon this principle I thought now this is, well, it’s stupid. Imagining creates reality? You mean, I actually believe a thing and I have no external evidence to support it, nothing in this world to support it, reason denies it, and my imaginal act is a causative fact and produces it and projects it? Well, I didn’t believe it although I stumbled upon it. Then I tried it and it worked. When it worked it was not what I wanted. I did it just as an experiment. So I warn you now, I acquaint you with what I know about this principle of imagining and leave you to your choice and its risk, for there’s risk in it. You may not want it after you get it, but that’s entirely up to you. Then don’t select it idly.

Do you know what you want of life? Do you know what you want? You can be anything in this world that you want to be if you know who you are and if you start on the premise I am all Imagination. I’m in states…I pass through states, so that eternity exists. All things exist now. Man passes through these states but the states remain permanent forever. Man passes through like a traveler, who may as well suppose that passing through a place that the place has ceased to be because he has passed through it. States are eternal. Your individual identity, that is forever. So I am a rich man one day, I could be a poor man the next, but I am still the same man, that same individual identity. I can go back to wealth or go back to poverty. I can be persuaded by the press, TV, radio, to change my concept of wealth and move unwittingly into another state which I don’t desire. But they can force me into it if I’m not on guard. So I can move into state after state after state, and play any part in this world, but the being playing it is the same actor. As the actor, I do not change the identity, I only change the role. So when I was rich and when I was poor, it was the same actor playing the parts. So you can be anything you want to be in this world if you know who you really are, and you start on the premise “I am all Imagination,” that’s who I am.

Now let me share again with you another story, and you see the difference in the temper, to show that they are completely unique in this world. This lady finds herself in a theater, an enormous theater. She and her husband, the director and his girlfriend, and then young boys and girls on the stage dancing, that’s all in this enormous theater. She is seated in front of the director and his girlfriend. There’s no music, and in spite of the fact that they’re dancing, there’s no sound to their motion of the feet. The director said to her, “Would you please bat out on your typewriter the first act, say an act, to give some sound to what they’re doing.” Well, the typewriter, as in dream, happened to be there, and with one hand, one finger, she batted out the act. At the end of the act, she said to the director, “Would you like me to use both hands? I can give you more sounds.” In her vision he lost his temper, berated her, called her everything under the sun, and then she reached the boiling point and she lost her temper. Then she rose and looked at him, and she said not to him but to herself, “I am going to freeze you! All I have to do is to arrest in me the activity that makes you alive. I’m going to freeze you” and she did. Eyes bulging, mouth wide open, finger pointing…and here is a dead form, it’s dead, completely frozen. She was so mad she woke on her bed to discover “I left him frozen…can’t do that…I must go back and unfreeze him.”

She goes back when she quiets herself down. The same scene appears and as she enters the scene, she being the operant power, he begins to talk. Now he’s not losing his temper, he begins to talk. But she gets mad all over again because he did not know that he was frozen by her. She wanted recognition of her power. Well, he was completely innocent, he couldn’t…if you were at this very moment all frozen and you’re frozen for the next thousand years, you wouldn’t know it. Whatever you intended to do at the moment of the freeze you would continue the action with no consciousness whatsoever that you were ever arrested in what you intended. So here, again this lady—I know from my own experience—she has conceived of the Holy Spirit, and she has tasted of the power of the age to come, but being of a different temperament, she’s a fiery woman right in this world, and undoubtedly that same fire will be tempered. It will be used in the age to come, for all can be used and all must be used and all will be used. But two entirely different states—one, he gave without recognition of the giver, and she was delighted, and he vanished for the purpose of not.

You see, when these things happen, you’re not in the body you are Spirit. I annex this body for the experiences I am now having in this world. You annex this body, but you are not that body, you are Spirit. And the day will come that you will awaken and you will be Spirit, not a body. You will be a being like Proteus, who can assume any shape for the part that you want to play. If it takes a fish, you’ll be the fish. If it takes a man, you’ll be a man; for you are Proteus and that’s who God is, he plays all the parts. There’s nothing but God in this world, and God and man are one. So here, she tasted of the power that is to come that she will exercise in the not distant future; and he tasted the power to see the thing objectify before his eye, the lipstick and the thousand dollar bill.

So here, you adjust yourself to what you desire to be in this world. As I adjust myself to New York City, I can adjust myself to wealth, adjust myself to being known, adjust myself to anything. “What would it be like if…?” you ask that simple question. “How would I feel if things were as I desire them to be?” Well then, you adjust yourself in your Imagination. Now, how do I know I have?—well then, look mentally at your world. You aren’t going to see it at your present level as objective fact, but you will see it in your Imagination. You will see friends looking at you and they will congratulate you on your good fortune. So let them congratulate you. If you would be congratulated by friends, then allow them to congratulate you…all in your Imagination…and believe in the reality of this unseen state. Just as Paul said that, “We look not to things seen but things unseen; for the things seen are temporal but the things unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). These are the unseen realities. You can’t conceive of something that isn’t.

Now Blake made the statement 200 years ago that all things exist: “Eternity exists and all things in eternity, independent of Creation which was an act of mercy.” Three thousand years ago the unknown writer of Ecclesiastes said it even more beautifully: “There’s nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See this is new’? It has been already, in ages past. But there is no remembrance of former things, nor shall there be any remembrance of things to come after among those who will come later” (Ecc. 1:9-11). There is nothing new under the sun.

Now, this past year, one of our great physicists got the Nobel Prize for saying the same thing but not as beautifully as Blake said it or the unknown writer of Ecclesiastes. This is how he said it and his name is Professor Richard Feynman. You’ll find him at Cal Tech and this is what he said, “The entire Space-Time history of the world is laid out and we only become aware of increasing portions of it successively.” For that he got the Nobel Prize and maybe $50,000…and Blake went to a pauper’s unmarked grave because he saw it. This chap arrived at this conclusion based upon his study of the disintegration of the atom. He watched the peculiar behavior of a little particle called a positron. When he saw how strangely it behaved, he concluded, well then, “the entire Space-Time history of the world is laid out, and man only becomes aware of increasing portions of it successively.” So in the year 1968 he gets $50,000 for saying the same thing not as beautifully, while Blake said it in poetry.

So I tell you, I see it…in my visions the whole thing is done, but it’s all dead. You come upon a scene just like this and it’s animated because you come upon it. You don’t realize at the time that you are the Spirit animating it. All of sudden, you know within yourself that you are and you decide to prove it, and you arrest the activity in you that causes this to become alive. As you do so everything freezes.The waitress walking walks not, the birds flying fly not, the diners dining dine not, the grass waving waves not, and everything is frozen. You look at it and you know that now if you release the activity, not there but in you, for that’s where it is, all will continue to complete their intentions. You release it in you and the waitress completes the service, and the boy completes the eating of the soup, and the bird completes the flight to a bough, and the grass begins to wave, and the leaf that was arrested in space begins to fall to the ground, and everything moves on. Then you realize who you really are, that you are this center of creative power. The day will come you’ll awake and exercise it knowingly, exercise it among the gods. That’s our destiny, that all will awaken as God and use this power to create in the true sense of the word.

Tonight, you take it as I tried to say it. There is no limit to this power. He sets no limit to the power of belief! Can I persuade myself that things are as I desire them to be? If I can persuade myself that things are as I would like them to be and I sleep in that assumption, that assumption being the act of faith, well then, tomorrow the world begins to change to make room for the coming of that assumption. If it takes one or 10,000 to aid the birth of it, it will take 10,000. I don’t need their consent; I do not need their permission. You do not need the permission of anyone in this world, because the whole vast world is dead anyway, and what could you do talking to dead people? You simply know what you want and then you animate it, and the whole vast thing begins to move towards the fulfillment of what you desire in this world.

Now you try it. Before you judge it, try it. It doesn’t make sense, but it will prove itself in performance. No matter what the world will think after it proves itself, what does it matter? If there is evidence for a thing, does it really matter what someone else thinks about it? What does it matter if the whole vast world rose in opposition after you can present the evidence? Well now, you’ll present the evidence if you’ll try it. If you try it, you won’t fail!

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

First of all, I’m going to ask you to share with me your dreams and your visions, for we’re told in scripture that God speaks to man through the language of dreams and makes himself known through vision (Num. 12:6). Well, nothing is more important if that’s the way God reveals himself than your dream and your vision. No matter how stupid it may seem to be to others, it is significant. So share with me your dreams and your visions that I in turn may share it from this platform and encourage all to go forward.

Now are there any questions?

Q: (inaudible)

A: Well, did you hear the question? You know what you did and you saw the result, but in spite of that you questioned that you in your imaginal act had anything to do with it. You can’t believe that that causative act originated in you. All I can tell you is it did. Therefore, try to persuade yourself of the reality of what you’ve heard. God’s only name is I AM. Is there a child born in this world who is not aware that he is? And if he’s aware that he is, is he not saying “I am”? Is there a child in the world who is not aware? You know someone could suffer from amnesia, total amnesia—doesn’t know who he is, where he is, or what he is—but he can’t stop knowing that he is. That Rock cannot be rubbed out. He can’t stop knowing that he is, and that’s God. “That is my name forever, throughout all generations” (Exod. 3:14-16). So persuade yourself that this Rock in you, which is I AM, that’s God…and all things are possible to God. You don’t have to devise the means. When the means appear in the world, they were not the means you possibly would have employed; and therefore you question that your imaginal act really was causative. But you try it, as you have been in the past, and keep on doing it.

Q: (inaudible)

A: You’re not responsible after you’ve done what they’ve asked you to do. They ask you and you put it within the framework of a loving state. If someone asked me tonight to hear the news that someone is dead, don’t come to me, go to someone else. They may be heavily insured and they’ve made a will and so they’ll say, “Alright, pray for me that he’s dead” or something. Well, don’t ask me; it’s not my cup of tea. I know someone in the Mid-West, he’s a minister, he runs a church on the first floor, he runs a home for old ladies on the second and third floors, and he’s a mortician in the basement. That’s a fact.

Well now, these old ladies undoubtedly are all leaving everything they have to him. Suppose they’re not well and you turn to the minister to pray for you, what is he going to pray for? He has you if you’re alive and he has you if you’re dead. What’s he going to pray for? Mortician in the basement, church service on the first floor and he runs a rooming house on the second and third. That’s a fact, he’s in Kansas. I’ll go no further because you’ll know who he is. When I heard that I could hardly believe that one in this world who should set everyone free stoops to that level…but they do. They don’t believe one word, so therefore you can’t blame them. Leave them alone. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re the blind leaders of the blind. You go out and set everyone free. Become a Job…when he prayed for his friends his own captivity was lifted.

Any other questions, please?

Well, we are here on Friday. The subject…it’s not a come-on…I’m really very serious about the title. It’s “1260”…that is the title. I have never seen it discussed. In all the exegeses I have read, not one comes near it, because they do not understand it. I’ll tell you from my own personal experience what that one thousand two hundred and sixty means. Everyone will one day experience it. You find it in Revelation, and you’ll find it in the Book of Daniel. Daniel does not explain it, it only records it. He was told to close the book and seal it ’til the time of the end. He was doing work the full import of which was hidden from himself. Now comes the New Testament that breaks the seal, and then the whole thing unfolds. Having broken the seal and having unfolded the entire thing within myself, I will explain it on Friday.

Thank you.