God and I Are One

If I could persuade you to believe what tonight I hope I, well, I will try to. Your entire world would change. You hear the word, God, the word Jehovah, the word Lord, the word Jesus, the word Christ, and you think of something other than yourself. One that is greater, one that you would worship. Tonight, it is my purpose to show you that God and the I of man are one. When you say I am, that is the God of Scripture. Confined as you are, you think, how could it be? God created the universe and sustained it. And here I am like a little worm, threescore and ten years and then I vanish.

And now, let us turn to Scripture. We turn now to the 16th chapter of Matthew. And the question is asked of the disciples, the followers, those who have heard him. And you say to them, “Who do men say that the son of man is?” And they reply, “Well, some say, John the Baptist come again. Others, Elijah, others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And the spokesman called Peter said, “Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” You say to him, “Blessed are thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood could not have told you this, but my Father who is in Heaven.” For here he equates the son of man with the I of man, not the organ that sees or through which you see, but your sense of awareness, that Iamness, when you are aware of being, your consciousness, your human imagination. So, he equates the two, the son of man spoken of in the Old Testament and brought forward into the New is nothing more than the “I” of man. And he calls it the Christ and defines Christ as the Son of God. Now we find Christ being defined in the New Testament as the power of God and the wisdom of God. So, the “I” of man is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

If a man does not know it, well, then he will not exercise that power. He will not exercise that wisdom. So tonight, I am trying to persuade you that when you say I, before you say anything, that that is the power and the wisdom of God.You can’t separate the power of God and the wisdom of God from God. So, you will say at the end, I and my father are one or he is called the son of God. Now, we are called upon to test this. If it be true, can we test it? I hope you’ll put it to the test when I tell you that your own wonderful Iamness is God. Though prior to that, you believe that you’re a little something, moving across the earth for a few years, seventy years, and then you will vanish, in the hope of some restoration, but a hope, no assurance.

Well now, I’m going to tell you that you really are God. Your own wonderful consciousness, your human imagination—that is the God of Scripture and there is no other God. Imprisoned as you are in these bodies of flesh, you did it for a purpose. Now let us see what it tells us about this Son of man that is now equated with the I of man. No one has ever ascended into Heaven, but he who descended from Heaven, the Son of man. You’ll read that in the third chapter, the 13th verse of John. So here we find you are a preexistent being. No one can ascend into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. Your ascension in the next verse, the 14th verse, is showing you how you ascend. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up.

That’s all imagery and yet it is true. You descended into generation, in a world of death, where everything begins; it waxes, it waves, and then it disappears. But there’s something in you, sewn in this garment, that does not die. That is preexistent and its home is Heaven, which is harmony. You gave it up completely. You aren’t pretending that you’re a man. You descended into man. You became man with all the weaknesses, all the limitations, all the restrictions of man, to experience this world of death and decay. There will come a moment in time that you will ascend from this restriction, taking with you the experience that is yours because of this restriction. And you will ascend in the same manner that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. That was an adumbration. That was a foreshadowing.

You will rise from the base of your spine, up your spine into your own skull, for Heaven is within you. And you rise like a fiery serpent, without any loss of identity, the form you wear, I hesitate to describe it. I will tell you that your face is human, your hands are human, and your voice is human. But do not ask me to describe the body that you wear. It’s infinite power, infinite wisdom, and yet it is a form. You are that fiery being that descended. Not because of anything that was wrong when you descended, the fall is not because of any mistake on our part. It’s a predetermined plan to come down into the world of death and decay and overcome it. If coming down, wearing these garments, we knew who we were, pretending that we were men, we could not accomplish it any more than an actor on the stage, pretending that he is Hamlet, can actually play that part. He has to actually assume it but even then it is still, with a little something in his mind, he knows he is the great actor who tonight will go home, to his lovely home and he’ll take off the garment and hang it up once more and tomorrow he’ll replay the play. You don’t do that in this play of God.

You don’t take off the garment, you wear it for your three score and ten, and if by strength, your four score or maybe even longer or shorter, but the I of man is the God of Scripture. Put it to the test. Let me now, first of all, before we go into the testing of it, make clear what I said on the last lecture night, Friday night, prompted by a question that was asked here. For I had said in the previous lecture that there are ranks in Heaven as there are on earth, for this is only a copy. Everything here is a shadow, it’s a copy of eternal realities. And in the 12th chapter of First Corinthians, Paul describes the eight ranks. He does it many times, but he never changes the first two. The first is always the apostle. The second, the prophet. The third, the teachers, and then he goes on, miracle workers, healers, helpers, administrators, and the speakers in tongues, but he never changes the first and second, the apostle and the prophet. You might think because I told you I am sent—and the word sent means an apostle—that I am appropriating unto myself a certain first rank. But now to put your heart at peace, I’m going to quote the 11th chapter of Romans. “As a whole, for there are always remnant of whole, and the remnant simply means the elect of God.”

You’re not elected because you are born by accident into some ethnic group, it hasn’t a thing to do with that. A descendant of Abraham after the flesh is not necessarily the elect of God. You are chosen from any race, any nation, any religion. Well, how the choice is made, no one knows, it remains the Father’s secret, but Paul qualifies it in this manner, “There is a remnant to this day called by grace.” And if by grace, then it is not on the basis of work. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. Therefore no one who is called and sent can brag. If he brags, he is not the sent, because it’s all by grace. He didn’t earn it. It is not by merit. It is simply a secret known only to the Father. So, when we are called, incorporated into the body of infinite love, who is God, and then sent, let no one who is sent raise a finger to brag, to boast, for it is all by grace. Read it in the 11th chapter, the fifth and sixth verses of Paul’s letter to the Romans. So now I have stated that.

So do not think for one moment, when I tell you I have been called and think that in any way I am trying to act superior, for there is no intrinsic superiority to those who are called. Now, he uses it in an analogy, which I do not think is adequate, but you can read it in the book itself. He uses the analogy of the human form. Not our head, eyes, nose, teeth, and so on, but that is a weak analogy. Nevertheless, he uses that to show you the different parts in one body. But now to come back to make this a very practical night. Believe me, that when you say I, before you say I am John, I am Bill, I am this, I am that, I am the other, you are declaring yourself to be and that sense of being is God; that’s God. Now, what are you going to put on it? All things are possible to God, all things. You could say now, as you’re seated here, after first affirming that “I am.” You can then assume that I am, and your name is exactly what you want to be. If you believe what I tell you about your own Iamness and remain faithful to what you have assumed, that assumption will harden into fact.

When you pray in the true sense of the word, you do not pray to any external God. That was my command when I was sent. “Down with the blue bloods” hasn’t a thing to do with the social structure of the world.* It has only to do with church protocol, all external worship, all ceremonies, everything that leads the individual outside of himself. To put a little cross on the wall and then bow before it, and see it as something external, is not what Scripture teaches. Buried in the Old Testament there is a pattern. So, he said taking the twelve, we’re going up to Jerusalem and everything written about the Son of man, which is the I of man, will be accomplished. But they did not understand what he said.

It was beyond their ability to grasp. He’s going up. And only the one who has experienced Scripture, which means, he has actually resurrected the pattern, playing the part that is the central part of Scripture. He resurrects the pattern all within himself. He plays all the parts. He is the one who is born from above. He is the one who comes out of the grave, unassisted. He is the one who three witnesses bear witness to his birth from above. He is the one they cannot see because he’s now spirit, yet more real than all the flesh in the world. He is the one who actually sees his Son, David and David calls him Father and he knows he’s David’s Father. And David knows that he is his Son.

He’s the one whose temple, the body, is stripped in two from top to bottom. It is he now who ascends like a fiery serpent from the base of the spine up into the skull. He is the one on whom the dove descends and lights upon his hand like Noah in the ark. And as Noah brought the dove into him, you bring the dove to you, for man is the ark of God. And as the ark contains all things within itself, man contains within himself all things. Everything—he creates from within himself. In this pattern, the individual awakens within himself. And who does it? The I of man. And that is God.

Now tonight you can test it as you are called upon to test it, test yourselves and see, do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless of course, you fail to meet the test. Examine yourself, to see whether you are holding to the faith. What faith? To have someone tell me that I am a Christian or I’m a Jew or I’m a Mohammedan and holding to that faith that they talk about? No. The faith that I’m talking about tonight; that your own wonderful Iamness is God. Test it to see if you’re holding to that faith. If you are holding to that faith, and all things are possible to God, you should be able to prove it in the testing.

She’s not here tonight. She promised she will write me a letter, having told me the story on Friday, but I know she finds it difficult to express herself in writing. She can paint and paint and paint and do all kinds of lovely things in painting and drawing. But when I said to her, please write it that I may tell it to my audience before I close; that I have no future plans after I close on the 29th. So, I would like to share your experience, to encourage everyone in this world to do what you did. Well, the letter didn’t come. I can see her struggling over one page and rubbing out a line because she didn’t spell the word correctly and going over the next one. But she can take a piece of canvas, a piece of paper, and do miracles with it. But because she’s restricted in writing a letter, she didn’t send the letter.

But the essence is this. She is now a divorced girl with a little boy, a handsome little fellow. Well, when you’re living alone and you need money and you have a child to support and you have a home, all the things, and the money isn’t coming in, then you’re up against it. She said, “I blew my top,” as you are told in the Psalms to do. “Then I applied this principle and I assumed that I had exactly what I needed plus and plus. Then I got a call from First National City Bank of New York City.” Now that is the second-largest bank in our country. Bank of America comes first, they’re second, and Chase Manhattan is third. “Giving me an order”—she has no agent, this is an unsolicited statement—“an order for $5,000,” which she can execute and deliver within a month. Well, the First National City Bank of New York is not going to be hard-pressed to pay her immediately $5,000.

If she called them and told them to pay in advance, they would willingly pay in advance. And she said, I can execute that order in one month, but I want the detail I had hoped she would send me as she promised last Friday, but knowing her restriction concerning the use of words, you can use the brush and use the pen and use the pencil, but she’s limited in the use of words. Eventually, she will send it, but I’d hoped to have it by tonight, so I could give you exactly what she did, but this is what I do. Having convinced myself through experience, I have come to the conclusion that because I am aware that I am, that that is God. For if by him all things are made and without him is not anything made that is made, and I start from scratch only imagining a state and then I boldly assume that it is real, that I actually experienced that state now. And then in the not-distant future, that state crystallizes in my world. Well, then I have found God. I have the source of the phenomena of life. My only concern then is to share it with others and tell and tell them for they are all one, we are one. No one is greater than the other. Not fundamentally. In his claims of what he is in the world of Caesar, he has more money or he has so and so, and so and so, but basically, the same creative power in the man tonight behind bars serving life is the same creative power of the one who sentenced him to life, is the same being, there is only one God. Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.

And the word translated the Lord is Yod Hey Vav Hey, properly translated is I am. When you go unto the people of Israel and they ask you, “What is his name?” And you claim that the God of Abraham and the God of Jacob and the God of Isaac sent you. You say onto them, “I am hath sent me. That’s my name forever. And by this name, I shall be known throughout all generations.” But man finds it difficult keeping the tense. And so, he speaks of thou art or he is, and he never actually comes down to the fundamental and knows that I am. I am the cause of the phenomena of my life, good, bad, or indifferent. I have to live with it and change my assumptions if I would change the world in which I live.

But now can I help a seeming other? I say you are myself pushed out. Can I help another? Yes, because there’s only one. If your request of me comes within the framework of the golden rule, something that I would like done to me, then I can willingly help you. If you ask of me that which does not come within the frame of the golden rule, do not ask it of me. I grant you complete freedom to go elsewhere and go to anyone who will tell you they can do it in spite of what he said. Go ahead. But if anyone asks of me any request, all that I do is this, it’s so simple. We are told in Scripture, that whatever we ask of him, knowing that he hears it, it shall be done for us. If we know he hears it. For can you imagine you seated here on the surface of your being, a rational being, knowing something that the depth of your own being that encompasses you doesn’t know? So, you know and you think, well, he doesn’t know. Well read that in the story of Ezekiel. You’ll read it in the 38th chapter. “And these are the elders of Israel that went into the dark room and they are carving on the walls, all gruesome things. And they said within themselves, the Lord does not see it.” And the Lord is speaking to his prophet Ezekiel. And he said the elders of Israel say that I do not see them—and watch what they’re doing, making all these abomination things within the great caverns. They will all reap them because I see everything that the elders of Israel see, but they think because it’s dark and it’s a cavern no one knows what you do, that God doesn’t know.

I have said time and again, that there is no fiction in this world. You might have heard the story and read the story concerning the seajacking of the Queen Elizabeth. You might have read the article in Time that some girl at Hunter College wrote that story in detail. And she was so shy when it came to the point to be read, she could not read it. She’s a shy, sweet lady with a gift of writing. She wrote that in detail, including those who seemingly participated, a terminal case in cancer, and one who is running away from the Law, who has not a thing to gain, and therefore is quite willing to blow the Queen Elizabeth with the 2,200 souls aboard, and everything is completely in detail in her fictional story. Imagining creates reality. There is no fiction. So, someone expressed her thought and called the captain while at sea and demanded a million dollars and would settle for $350,000. Well, it must have cost them, I should say, more than a million to stop that huge hulk in Mid-Atlantic and then feed 2,200 people four times a day for the extra meals that they would have coming to them, plus all the things that you put it all together, it would cost more than a million dollars, and a little girl possibly writing this for her Ph.D., or writing it for some reason, and she writes it in detail. They gave her name, so you can contact her. They gave the school, it’s Hunter College in New York City. And everything in detail is told in that story. So, I tell you, you sit down and write fiction. Need not put it down. My friend wrote fiction. She had a large sum of money coming in and she went to town within herself and she wrote in herself and blew her top, as it were.

Thank you. Thank you. Didn’t drink enough tonight.

So, she, in the depth of her own being, conjured the sum of money that she needed, beyond, always go beyond. So, we are told in the Psalms, “Be angry, but sin not. Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be silent.” Yes.Blow your top, but do not let the sun go down upon your anger. Be silent as you commune with self, you don’t commune with another. For the self of man is God. So be angry, but sin not, commune with your own heart upon your bed. Start communing with another and then you actually know exactly what you want. And in that state fall asleep. And in a way that no one knows and you in your surface mind you do not know, it will all come to pass. Everything in the world is created this way but man does not know it. Who knows tonight who is treading the wine press that is going to cause a change of mind in tomorrow’s world?But when they do it, they are intent in the doing. “If you are lukewarm,” you are told in the Scripture, “I’ll spew you out. Would that you are either hot or cold, but because that you are lukewarm, I will spew you out.” You can’t do anything if you are lukewarm. You must be intense about it. You want to be rich, all right, you can be rich. You want to be known. You can be known. No matter what you want but you must be intense about it and then commune with your own heart upon your bed and then let it drop. You’ll read that in the 4th Psalm, the Psalm of David.

So, I say to everyone here, believe me, your own wonderful Iamness, your consciousness, your wonderful human imagination. That is God. And all that you behold, though it appears without it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow. So, you can change the shadow if you change the object, for you are the light. He said, “I am the light of the world.” Change the object that you are holding within yourself and identifying yourself with it. Change that object. You’re lighting up and you’ll cast a new shadow upon the world. So, you say, I am and you name it.And then you say, I am unemployed. No, I am gainfully employed, making more than I’ve ever made before. Don’t ask yourself how, why, and through whom—that is not your conscious reasoning mind’s concern.

If you take the intellectual background, the educational background, of those who are making top money in the theatrical world, I doubt that they could pass any college examination. I don’t think they could pass any entrance examination to college. Yet, they’re making a million dollars, two million dollars a year. Do you think Bob Hope could pass today’s examination for entrance into college? But all of his material is written for him anyway, he can’t even write that. But he has millions. All right, because that’s how he dreamt, may I tell you? I know the background of the man. A friend of mine who has now gone from this world, played in vaudeville with him. And he would borrow from my friend every week, a sum of money because he had to go to that post office and buy a postal money order and send it to his bank. He borrowed money that was interest-free because he was sending in money that was not interest-free. He had to send a certain sum of money every week and he would send it into his account. And borrowed from my friend, Harry Webb who had a band and they played together, not in the same act. Harry had his own act. He has a small band. And Harry was the outgoing personality who didn’t care about money. And so, he wanted money, Hope wanted money, he would loan him the money. He always paid it back the next week and borrowed it again because he had to have so much in that bank every week. And when they would go into a restaurant and food was leftover like bread and butter, who took it all home? Bob Hope. Bob took all the buns, all the rolls, everything that was there uneaten, he paid for it and you paid for it. “You don’t want it, Harry, do you?” No. All right. So, he took it home. So, he has $400 million, so they claim. That was his goal in life.

If that’s the goal, have it. I speak of another goal. The goal of awakening to who we are. When man awakens from this dream, the whole vast world and all that it contained is as nothing to the being that you are. You came down from Heaven where the whole is yours. As you’re told in the 50th Psalm, “If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is mine and all within it. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine.”So why should I tell anyone of my need when it’s all mine anyway? I would slay and eat. When you are awakened, you don’t ask anyone. If you awaken from this dream of life. But while you are in it, all right, we are one. This little hand of mine, if it begins to itch here now, it’s easier for me to take this hand that is not attached to this and scratch it than to try to bend this thing out of shape, to scratch the back of it. I could rub it here, but why not? This is easier. And take a part of my own being to ease the itch.

We are all one pushed out. So, you can do it. Ask anyone that you trust. May I tell you, he isn’t, if he knows how to pray, he isn’t going to burst any blood vessel. He isn’t going to get down on his knees and pray to any external God if he knows how to pray. He isn’t going to beg of anyone in this world. What he will do, he will simply represent you to himself as one telling him that you have what you asked of him. And when he is satisfied that you told him that you have it, don’t ask the second time for the same thing, because he’s not going to listen to you. He heard it, he is still hearing it, and he will continue to hear it until that which he has heard is perfectly externalized.

So don’t think you need several treatments. That’s a lot of nonsense. Treatments for what? It either is or it isn’t. So, when they start getting you on the hook and say, now I think you need more treatments, you need more treatments. She or he or the crowd, they do not know what they are doing. When you pray, go within and close the door of the senses, deny all that seems so obvious. And your Father who is within will reward you openly. But commune with self for you and the Father are one. So, you commune with self. And what did he tell you? Exactly what was asked of you. He heard it and he has all the ways and means that you, on the surface of your being, know not of. He will do it. If you ask anything of one if it comes within the framework of his code of ethics. Don’t ask anyone who knows how to pray something that does not come within his golden rule, do onto others as you would have them do unto you. Just as simple as that. And most of the requests would come within that rule. And so, you simply hear it. And then you drop it completely. And in the depth of your own being, you are still hearing it. And the Father knows all means, all ways, and so he singles out the best way to externalize it.

Here in New York City many years ago, this lady, a lady of considerable means, she left her home in New York City and went off to Paris with her two children, leaving her home and her maid. Before she returned the maid took all of her furniture and took it away. When she returned the apartment was there, rent was paid every month, but there was no furniture, not a thing in it. She employed a private agency, told the police department, told all the authorities in New York City, and plus her private agency. At the end of a few months, they did not turn up one thing concerning that stolen property. She came to see me, I said, all right, you’re seated there and I’m seated here in my apartment. Now you are not seated in my apartment. You are seated right now, close your eyes, you are seated in your own apartment. And you had a grand piano. She said, no, I had a piano, but it wasn’t a concert grand. It was grand but not a concert grand. And on it, I had my pictures of my two children. And I had pictures on the wall. She told me what they were. And the furniture. I said, all right, refurnish that place as you left it, you have a memory. She did. Now when I stop talking, it’s because you have refurnished that place to me. Now you’re going to go in and you aren’t going to see your apartment from my apartment, you are in your apartment, and you can feel your chair and get off your chair and feel the piano, and see the children, the pictures of the children. And that’s what you’re going to do. She agreed she would do it. And then we simply broke the spell. What did it take? Two minutes, three minutes. That week she went to her bank on Madison Avenue. As she was coming out of the bank, she had a past history of her little mental state, where she was put away for a while because she needed psychiatric treatment. And the bars on this window reminded her of her past history and therefore addled her for a while.

So, she came onto Madison Avenue and turned south instead of turning north where she should have. When she discovered her mistake, she was at the end of the block. When she got there and discovered her mistake, she looked down and two very familiar ankles were standing right before her. She came up to the face, that’s her maid and the maid started to scream. She went over to the maid and grabbed her before the light changed, and hailed the oncoming taxi, said, you are taking me right now, and the maid who could have killed her, she was so big and strong, was so reduced to impotency because of the discovery. And the maid took her to the place where she had stored that furniture. She said I’m not bringing an action against you. I want my furniture. And she got it back into her own apartment within the week. A seeming mistake was the way the Father led her. All I ask is to go to the end. If I go to the end and give thanks to the end and for the end, it’s done. Now, let the one in the depth of my own being devise the best means to take me to that end. The end is where I start. The end is my beginning. And that is a story that I know from personal experience.

So do not attempt to devise the means and tell the one that you ask to pray for you how it should be done. He will lose all interest and turn his back and say, go elsewhere. You don’t go into a doctor’s office and tell him what he should do. If you go to him, because you trust him, well then, you’re either going to trust him and continue or you’re going to leave him. Well, if you go to someone that you really believe who knows how to pray, don’t tell them how to do it, and what means should be employed in order to do it. He is going to go to the end if he knows how to pray. The end is where we begin. In my end is my beginning. And we’re always ahead of our evidence. So I go to the end, I see the whole thing done, and then drop it and let it happen in my world.

So, to come back, the I within you now, when you say I, no matter how little you have thought yourself so far, may I tell you, you are the infinite God. And when the story of Jesus Christ repeats itself within you, you will know it’s all I. No one called Jesus is going to appear. He’s not going to push any stone away from you when you come out of that tomb. And then you’ll know the words of John, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”