God’s Law

Tonight you’ll find it a very practical night and, at the same time, a spiritual night. We’ll call it “God’s Law.” Paul said, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, so shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Here we find the principle of the identical harvest: Whatever you sow, that you reap. “See yonder fields? The sesamum was sesamum, the corn was corn. The silence and the darkness knew. So is a man’s fate born” (Light of Asia). So we are told in the very 1st chapter of Genesis, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each after its own kind” (verse 11). Then we are told in the same Book in the 8th chapter that “As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest shall not cease” (verse 22). So everything that is happening to us, but everything, good, bad and indifferent, is happening because some imaginal act brought it into being.

Now you may think, well now, this is a horrible thing. I, in my ignorance, imagined so many unlovely things. Must I live with it? I planted it. If this is a law and it endures forever, I can’t deny if this is God’s law that whatever is taking place now in my world, I brought it into being because I imagined it at some moment in time; a moment, if it is unpleasant, when I was ignorant of God’s law. Nevertheless, he is no respecter of persons and here I am living with horrible fruit, where I in my ignorance planted it. But we need not despair. There is a still greater law than that, a much greater law! And the law is, as we are told, “With the pure, thou showest thyself pure; with the crooked, thou showest thyself perverse.” That confirms that law, that the universe is only infinite response; so, what I think him to be that he will be to me.

But in the 130th Psalm, you will find something far more profound than this. Here the Psalmist makes the statement that if you would mark the iniquities, who could stand? “If thou, O Lord, mark the iniquities, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee” (verses 3, 4).So you need not ask anyone in this world why he did what he did to bring about the conditions that now he doesn’t want in the world. Don’t analyze it; don’t dig as to why he did it. He could have done it deliberately; he could have done it in ignorance. But here is a law that transcends this law of planting and reaping: It is the law of forgiveness. Forgiveness is simply revision, or you may call it repentance. But the Bible speaks of it as repentance, and speaks of it as forgiveness. You come upon a scene…alright, you don’t like the scene, and it’s factual, no question about it, and you know that someone somewhere brought it into being by first imagining a scene of that nature because it couldn’t come into being unassisted by an imaginal act. So it is brought into being by an imaginal act. Well, forget it. Don’t condemn her, don’t condemn him; just now do something about it, and do it now.

So let me share with you a story told me to confirm a check that I saw last Tuesday night. Last Tuesday night, a chap who’s here tonight, showed me a check for $10,000, which a friend of his (who is also here tonight) brought him from the office. Knowing that he’d find him here, he brought this check for $10,000. So he wrote me a letter, which I asked him, please tell me why he has the check and the details of it. Well, he said, “About a month ago, I invested some money for a couple—-we’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. A. Soon thereafter some little annoyance took place within them, some insignificant little point they made much of. So when I called on them, they were irate. I went back to the office and revised the entire thing. I brought them into my mind’s eye, saw them smile, took their hands, and felt a warmth, felt a lovely atmosphere of friendliness, and everything that I wanted.

“Now, that behind me, I turned to the world of Caesar. I did it until it took on the tones of reality. Then I turned to the world of Caesar and a letter was involved, so the letter was sent off. Then some investigation had to be made, so I began to investigate. With all this information now in my possession, I called on them…that’s few days later. She was home; her husband was out. She greeted me with a wonderful smile and said how happy she was to see me, and would I come in and please wait, he’ll be back shortly…that friends of theirs called on them from Palm Springs and he was out taking them around. So I waited and in a little while the couple came along with the husband. This couple that came, they became interested in the work I do, and how I invested funds for this couple, friends of theirs. And this was the reason for the $10,000 check. That was the first payment on a series of investments that they intend to make, which will be a far greater investment than the original couple.

“Were it not for this irritation, I would have no occasion to call on them, but something came up in their mind’s eye and they were disturbed. I don’t want to disturb a client of mine. No client of mine should be disturbed; I want them satisfied. So I called on them to find them in the most irritable manner. And aside from that, I thought, now I can’t leave them this way, I must revise it. Regardless of what happened, something must have happened in their imaginations to cause that irritation, because it couldn’t happen unassisted by an imaginal act. So I went back to the office and revised it. Having revised it then I turned to the law of Caesar or the world of Caesar, got the letter off, made the investigation, found the material that I needed, and then in a few days called on them to find a couple—unknown to me, total strangers to me, never heard of them—-eager to make an investment. And I am the agent through which they make it.”

Now, in this world of ours God acts only through us. There’s no way for him to act save through us. As we are told, “He who receives you receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (John 13:20). Here is an unbroken chain. There is no error in the world that does not have a man for its agent; there is no truth in the world that does not have man as its agent. You can’t possibly conceive of something actually outside of man; it is the unbroken chain. He who receives you receives me; he who receives me receives him who sent me. So if God would act in this world and change the horror that man himself in the misuse of Imagination has brought into being, he could only forgive through man. So if you and I know the law, you and I become the agents through which God can forgive everything in this world. But if he doesn’t find a man who’s willing to be used as the agent of forgiveness, God can’t forgive. For this law must hold good until the earth comes to an end: Be not disturbed and be not deceived, for as a man sows, so shall he reap. And that is law, and forever seedtime and harvest will go on and will never come to an end while the earth endures. And everything will bring forth after its kind; every tree bearing fruit in which there is seed brings forth according to its kind.

So you and I are the agents of forgiveness. So you come into a home and it’s distressed financially, or distressed because of sickness, or distressed in a thousand different ways. We don’t have to analyze that household. We don’t have to ask them why they did it, and make it all the more real in their mind’s eye. You and I can find—-and I think we have found—a more profound truth and it is the reality of forgiveness. You can forgive every being in this world. Now, forgiveness along with healing are divine prerogatives. If you can forgive, then you know who you are…for only God can forgive. But in that passage that we quoted earlier, if I bind something on earth it is bound in heaven; if I loose it on earth it is loosed in heaven. It’s entirely up to us. If I see something and I say, alright, that’s law, you planted it somewhere. Yes, they wouldn’t deny it if they know the law. You and I, if we know the law, we ought not deny the law that someone somewhere planted this. So why should I steep him in it and keep him there? I can forgive and you can forgive. As long as we know the art of forgiveness we’re called upon to practice it morning, noon and night. So that is our picture here.

A lady wrote me this past, well, yesterday I got the letter from Boston. She was born in this state, lived here until about a year ago when she married a fellow who came from Boston, and they returned to Boston. She took her little boy with her. She said, “When the boy was nine years old (he’s now eleven), when he was nine, a psychiatrist and the principal of the school and a teacher had me in to tell me that the boy was backward, and could never really make the grade. Don’t push him, just leave him alone, because he is not equal to it, and he never will be as long as he lives. That’s the story that they gave me.” Well, she said, “I was terribly hurt and terribly distressed, and for the first week I just didn’t know what to say or what to think. Then I thought I am not applying what you teach. So this is the psychiatrist’s comment, it’s confirmed by the principal, confirmed by the teacher, but certainly if what you teach is true, and I’ve proven it so often, why should I not apply it now to my little boy? Well, to make it short, she said, we went back east. I applied it every day. I didn’t take it now; I took it to the very end. I saw him with his cap and gown receiving his diploma. If he’s receiving his diploma from college—-regardless of what they tell me now about my little nine-year-old boy—-then something must have happened to change his attitude towards life and change everything in his world.

“Well, now he is eleven, and the teacher in Boston said to him this past week, ‘If you continue as you have for the past month, do you know you’re going to get straight A’s?’” Straight A’s! If you continue as you have for the past month you are going to get straight A’s. She said, “Neville, I had no tutor for him. Bill and I did nothing about it other than to pray as you taught us how to pray. I simply kept in my mind’s eye that picture of my son graduating from college. Well, to graduate from college, he must do well in his present school and then through high school. He’s only eleven, but now he has confirmation that he can do it, and the teacher has promised him straight A’s if he continues from now on to the end of this term as he has in the past month.”

So in spite of what he might have done in the past…it was a broken home. He was divorced and she was divorced, and they met in AA; both drank excessively. They had their broken homes and they met in AA, and a friendship developed and then culminated in marriage. Well, this is the little boy of a broken home on her side, and I think he has three on his side, but the little boy was given to her. And they took him down to Mexico City. Took him out of school for six months when they went on their honeymoon. She said, “Alright, if this is all the boy can do, take him out of school, take him into Mexico City. It would be better for him than trying to force him and leaving him behind me in the home of some stranger.” But today, she has at least if not confirmation, she has the hope voiced by a teacher. So here, no one need despair they can always forgive. No one need despair they can always revise. If you revise, that is to forgive. If you revise, that is to repent. So repent and believe the story.

So I say to everyone here tonight, just as this chap undoubtedly when he received this telephone call or a letter making some complaint, which he thought minor…it led to a bigger account. If you take everything that comes into your world, every irritant as simply not something that is going to be disastrous. But in this case, without that he would not have had the call. He would not have gone to the place to try to adjust it. When he came back, finding how disturbed they were, the average agent would simply forget it. He did what he could do, the best, and we’ll forget it. He didn’t forget it; he did something about it. Doing something about it, he simply put God in action. Because God can’t act in the world of man save through the agent that is man.

So, as Blake brought out, the combats of good and evil is eating of the tree of knowledge; the combats of truth and error is eating of the tree of life. Then he said, everyone is personifying good, evil, truth, error, it’s all personified. I know that to be true when I see it in my visions. So, every error needs a man as its agent, and every truth needs a man as its agent. So if I see something and it’s unlovely and I let it stand just where it is, well, I’m the agent perpetuating it in my imaginal act. I’ve heard people say, “They’re no darned good anyway. Leave them alone. Why bother yourself with them?” and so they refuse to be the agent of God’s mercy. They will say…and you give them all the arguments in the world, “But you know you did it.” Alright, so they did it. Well then, you can still overcome it. No matter what man has ever done, you can forgive them…it doesn’t really matter.

When Blake saw it so clearly, then he made the statement: “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.” And so, you and I unwittingly fall into a state. We don’t know it. And if someone sees us in that state, if they know the law, they’re going to say, and rightfully so,“Well, then you must have imagined it somewhere along the way.” Undoubtedly I did. Undoubtedly one night I felt sorry for myself, I felt unwanted, or I felt this, that or the other. Alright, if this law is an eternal law it will never come to an end as long as the earth endures. Alright, so I must reap it and my harvest must come into being. But if you know a far greater law, which is the law of forgiveness, and you find me in this mess, it’s entirely up to you, as the agent of God, knowing more than I know, to set me free. I fell into it not knowing, I fell into it unwittingly. But if you come into my world and you know deeper and far greater things than I do, it’s entirely up to you to act as the agent of God’s mercy. If you refuse to act as the agent of his mercy, alright, that is your privilege. I say to everyone here, no one need remain in any state where he is if he’s in the atmosphere of one who knows how to forgive.So we are told, that when Peter discovered who Christ really was—-and he said it came from the depths of his soul—-he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And the voice said to him, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mat. 16:17). Then he said to him, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (verse 19). But anything, not if it is good, bad or indifferent, anything! You’ll read this in the 16th chapter of the Book of Matthew.

So here, you and I are called upon to go out into the world and put in to practice what we know of the creative power of God that the Bible speaks of as Jesus Christ. You see, he does not separate us—-“Who receives you receives me; and who receives me receives him who sent me”—so there is an unbroken chain. So even if at the very end of the chain they don’t understand and you are in the middle of that chain, the creative power of God, so you know who you are. If you know that your Imagination is the creative power of God and the wisdom of God, then it is entirely up to you to take over in the presence of those who do not know. And I would say that ninety-nine percent of the people, they do not know. But don’t condemn them if you tell them what you know. But then don’t walk away empty handed, do something about it, and then leave it. It’ll work. It will work just as surely as tomorrow’s sun will come. Whether you see it in this city or not, the sun is out.

Now read carefully that 119th Psalm. It’s a long one, 176 verses, but it wouldn’t take you too long. He said, “My eye fails with watching for thy promise.” And now that will comfort you: “My eye fails with watching for thy promise” (verse 82). How many people since I started talking about the promise have said to me, “But when, when?” Well, be comforted. The great psalmist confessed his eye was fading with the watching for the promise. But then he also confessed that he was glad that he was afflicted: “I’m glad I was afflicted, for until I was afflicted I did not know or keep thy word” (verse71). And he goes on verse after verse being happy that he was afflicted; for he had to ask himself questions, “Why is this happening to me?” Then when he realized it was a law, he said, I delight in thy law. But before I knew your law…I didn’t know. Now he delights in the law of God. But the same psalmist, he now begins to tell us something entirely different. Of this…”If you marked it, my iniquities, then I couldn’t stand in your presence.” Who could stand if their iniquities were marked? “But there is forgiveness with thee.” He found something so much deeper than the law of God. Then he went on, verse after verse, pleading to comfort him with the promise. He called it “the righteous promise, the promise you made my father.”

So here, tonight…it may happen tonight, I don’t know. No one can tell you when it’s going to happen. It’s my constant prayer for everyone that it happens now, that you may know the truth of the word of God. But long before it happens, as far as the promise coming, you can actually use his law and transform your world and the world of those that you love. Actually do it, just as simply as this man who showed me his $10,000 check on Tuesday, and the letter that came yesterday from my friend Betty back in Boston. Every morning’s mail will bring something of a similar nature. Some are too involved for me to take the platform and talk about them, because they go into all kinds of irrelevant parts of it, which is not really what I should tell you here. But every morning’s mail brings something, something to encourage everyone who would hear me. And this cannot fail; it’s a simple, simple law. Even if I didn’t know the law of forgiveness and used the law of God wisely, well, not a thing in this world could stop me. I must not deceive myself, because God is not being mocked: As I sow I am going to reap.

And how do I sow? I sow every time I entertain a thought. Every time in this world that I entertain a thought with feeling, I have sown that thought. That’s the seed. As we are told in the 5th chapter of Matthew: “You’ve heard it said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that any man who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed the act with her in his heart” (verse 27). He shows us the inwardness of the law. If I restrain the impulse, he tells me that’s not good enough. Regardless of my motive for restraint—-I may be afraid of the consequences; I may be afraid that I’ll be discovered; and maybe if I thought I would not be discovered, I wouldn’t have that desire to restrain the impulse. But he’s telling me that regardless of my motive for restraint, I committed it in that moment when I entertained the act. So, if I entertain any act, the act is done.

Now, the interval between that act and its fulfillment, its objectification on the screen of space, is something that only the Father knows. How long is it going to take between this imaginal act and its fulfillment, I do not know. But if the law is forever, well then, regardless of when it’s going to happen, do it now anyway. What would it feel like to be secure? What would it feel like to be wanted? What would it feel like to contribute to the world’s good? Well then, assume that I am doing all these things now. Now, tomorrow may not bring confirmation of what I’ve done, but do it anyway. And if I do it, then in a way I do not know it will come to pass.

But anyone is here…I doubt someone is here tonight who is a stranger to this thought…but if you are, let me put it in a very simple, simple way for you. This is how I go about planting. I could do it walking the street, driving in a friend’s car, driving in a bus. But suppose we take it simply when we’re home, and I find a very nice time is just before I go to bed. But before I lose consciousness, I put myself in the state of my wish fulfilled. That wish need not be for myself, in fact, quite often it is not for myself it’s for those who ask help of me. Some mother will call about a child or wife call for her husband, husband about a wife, and at that moment I simply, as I’m going to bed, I listen just as though I’m hearing their voice, and I carry on a mental conversation with them from the premise of their fulfilled desire. I try to hold myself in that state without wandering, so when I do sleep I fall into that state. If I fall into that state, hearing their voice tell me what they would tell me were it true, then I’ve prayed successfully relative to them.

I need not ask them the next day, or call them or write them, they’ll call me. If they are given as so many people are not to let you know, I will hear about it anyway, in a way that I do not know how, but I will. Someone will tell me “Have you heard the good news?” and they will tell me the good news about that individual…if I’m faithful to the planting. So I take it clearly in my mind’s eye and simply fall asleep in that state. For, there are infinite states in the world. And every state produces its response, for the world is infinite response. If I am faithful and this law is forever, that everything must bring forth after its kind, well, I know the kind that I planted. I planted good news for Mrs. Brown. I heard her tell me that the daughter is perfect. I heard good news for Mr. Brown…he has the job. And then I heard good news for so-and-so, and each one was simply falling into these states.

When I was in New York and had interviews five days a week, between the hours of one and five, well, five thirty, because I saw half-hour interviews, I found that I got good results if I took one after the other. One would come into this world, and one would go through the door, and the other one is waiting. She had no sooner gone through the door than I gave my entire attention to the request of the next one. I never thought of that other one, because I did all that I could do while she was present. We always sat in the Silence together. All I would ask of anyone who sat with me is to sit quietly, don’t talk, but mentally tell me you have what you sought. I will sit here in a receptive manner and I will hear your voice just as distinctly as I heard it just one minute ago while we were talking. I know exactly what you sound like, and so when you close your eyes and go into the Silence, and I’ll close my eyes and go into the Silence, and although your voice is inaudible to anyone in this world, it is to me, internally. I can hear it. Now, I will put upon this tone that I am hearing, which is your voice, the words I want to hear. So I will then go into the Silence and listen to her voice or his voice, and then at the very end, when it’s broken, it was done. I planted it. So when I said goodbye, I had no concern whatsoever beyond that door. The next one I gave my entire attention, undivided attention to the next one, and tried in the interval to ferret out what they really wanted. Not what happened to them, not what is happening to them, what they really wanted. Because I wasn’t going to analyze anything about them…just tell me what you want…I’ll plant that now. So we go into the Silence and I plant that. All I asked of anyone was to imagine that they were talking to me, but don’t do it audibly. Just tell me in your own sweet, wonderful way that it’s done. Don’t tell me how it happened, because you don’t know how it’s going to happen.

I had one very interesting case. This lady had never seen me before, but she heard about me, and she postponed it and postponed it because, well, she thought I might be some magician or something. So she came in this day and I explained to her what I do. Well, her problem was this, a friend of hers had disappeared and she hadn’t heard from her or seen her in over a year. Some friend of hers had told her to come to me and I could help her find this friend. So she came, and I said, all I can tell you is that you don’t understand this teaching of mine, you’ve never been to my meetings, you never read my books, you know nothing of me, so I can’t give you a lesson now, but I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Talk to me a little while and tell me about your friend so I may get your voice, which she did. I said now to be perfectly silent, very, very still, and all you do you imagine that you’re telling me that you’ve found her. I’m going to sit perfectly still here and I’m going to imagine that you are telling me that you have found her. Well, she said that doesn’t make sense. I said, well, I can’t explain the reason behind this, but I’ll tell you, you try it anyway. So she did. I took her to the door and said goodbye to her. Well, she went out as though she’d met an insane person, perfectly mad, because I’d seemed to her so completely off base as it were. First thing she did, she inquired about her friend through a neighbor, and the neighbor said she went on off to New Haven. Well, that’s almost a year ago. She took a train to New Haven. New Haven isn’t too far, maybe two hours away from New York City. She inquired there. They said, yes, we know this lady…she left several months ago and went off to Boston. So she got on a train and off to Boston she goes. Well, that’s not more than another two and a half hours from New Haven to Boston. She goes to Boston and yes, they knew this lady, knew her quite well, but she left without any forwarding address, so we can’t tell you now where she has gone. So she knew New Haven and she knew Boston, but beyond Boston there was no address.

So, she returned to New York City. This day she was down on 14th Street, Kline’s department store. She went on the sidewalk, walking west—Union Square is where this department store is—so she’s walking west, opposite Kline’s, and suddenly here comes this lady. Had she been one split minute, a split second really, earlier or later than she was she would have missed this lady. She ran right into her, and they actually embraced right in front of that store. What did it? All of her searching didn’t find her. What we did in the room, in that moment of Silence, brought her into that picture. It would have saved her time and money. She need not have gone to New Haven, need not have gone to Boston, could have remained right in New York City and saved her time and her money; for that’s where she found her anyway.

I could tell you unnumbered stories of this kind. So if you really believe God’s word, then you will not be deceived because God is not mocked. And you will not try to deceive him because you can’t deceive him.You will plant only the things you want to reap in this world. But if perchance—and we’ve all done it unwisely—things are happening that are unpleasant, and you can’t deny that the law works, that you must have done it at some time—you have the far deeper law, the law of forgiveness. Just as you can forgive another, you can forgive yourself. You don’t have to say I can only use this for another, for you will know in the end of time there is no other. Every time you forgave the seeming other, you’re really forgiving self, because in the end God is one. And the whole vast world that you see is nothing more than yourself made visible.

So you can this night…as my friend resolved this irritant in the couple, and by resolving the irritant there, they were the means through which he got a client who is about to invest more than they did. For this $10,000 check is simply the first of a series of checks for his investment for them. So, do not let this night come to an end without planting something that is lovely. And you can plant it in the midst of what is taking place today.No matter what is taking place, if it is unpleasant, doesn’t really matter; from now on plant and plant only that which is of good report, things you really want to reap in this world. You may say to yourself, well, I don’t need this today. Well, plant it anyway. I don’t need money or I don’t need this, I don’t need the other. Plant it anyway.

And to go back to the 119th Psalm, if you’ve been anxious and you’ve asked, When is it going to happen to me? When are you going to comfort me, my Lord, with the promise?…know the psalmist asked the same thing. So that your, not irritation, your desire to bring it to pass now is not an unhealthy desire, because the psalmist wanted it as eagerly as you’ve ever wanted it. But he was not given it just because he wanted it; it would come in its own good time. So what I took tonight, I took the first chapter, 11th verse of Genesis; I took the last verse of the 8th chapter of Genesis; and I took the 130th Psalm to show you the most profound truth that transcends the law of God without rubbing it out. That’s the 130th Psalm, the 3rd and 4th verses, and many verses from that very long Psalm, the 119th.

But there is a story told of the great Thomas Huxley. With quite a few of his scientific friends, one day a man said to the group, “If you saw a very heavy object suddenly rise from the floor and float through space unassisted, no power lifted it, no power seems to sustain it, but floating through space, and then it descends gently to the earth, what would you say that you’ve seen?” Well, before Huxley could answer another one answered and he said, “I would say I have just seen the suspension of the law of gravity.” Huxley said, “I would say I have just witnessed the operation of the law of which I am totally ignorant.” That’s better. Well, God’s laws aren’t broken, but a law deeper than this law of the identical harvest could be brought into play. Leave that law forever, because it will always be operating.But in the confused world, there’s a deeper law, the law of mercy, the law of forgiveness, which can change everything in our world, no matter what weed we planted in the past. So if today you can…without looking at your world and seeing what a barren world it is…you can actually in your mind’s eye plant the kind of world…and forget what you planted in the past…God allows that.He’s not going to suspend; there’s no suspension of the law of gravity, it’s something far greater that encompasses it. So, one scientist thought he saw the suspension of the law of gravity, and the other one thought he saw or witnessed the operation of a law of which he was totally ignorant.

I know in my own case, I not only saw the suspension of gravity, seemingly, but I also know that I was the cause of the seeming suspension, because I found a greater law. That the bird in flight didn’t fall when I arrested something not there but in myself. So, when I arrested the activity in me that was the cause of the motion of the bird, the bird was arrested, and arrested in space, it didn’t fall. Now the law of gravity seemingly was suspended, but I know what I did and, therefore, I simply operated the law of which prior to that moment I was totally unaware, totally ignorant. I know today that you don’t suspend the law of gravity you simply bring into play a far greater law, and those not understanding the greater law will think the law of gravity suspended. It wasn’t suspended, because the whole vast animating power was in me all along, and I didn’t know it. I didn’t know it until that moment in time.

So I know today, though I can’t control it a hundred percent, that nothing in my world that I perceive is completely independent of my perception of it. Were it independent of my perception of it, I couldn’t forgive. Then that line would be broken as we read it in the Book of Matthew. So when we read in that 18th chapter, the 18th verse of Matthew, “He who receives you, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me” that’s an unbroken chain. If that were not unbroken, well then, I could not forgive you. But because it goes all the way back to the source of all things, God, and we are one, so he who receives me, receives him who sent me. And he who receives you, receives me who sent you, therefore we are one on a chain of ascending degrees. So, on a higher level, you can forgive because you are in union with God, and this is his prerogative: to forgive.

So here, let’s go into the Silence.

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Q: ___(??) do protective work every morning before the day…A: Well, I find it wise to do it every day, at any time of the day. But I found that man should plant. If he doesn’t plant one thing, he’ll plant something else anyway; because his imaginal acts are secret, and he’s planting morning, noon and night.Q: Well, I mean instead of waiting and then do the revision afterwards and waiting for something to happen…A: Start early in the morning. I find a very good practice start early in the morning and go to the end of the day. That’s an excellent practice. Go to the end of the day, in the early hours of the morning, and then feel the success of that day. Before you go through the door to face the day, return home just as though the day were over. We’re told that in the 119th Psalm. He said, “My eyes…”—speaking now of the watch—“my eyes are awake before the watches of the night” (verse 148). My eye is awake before the watches of the night…before he starts the watch. Well, the watch is from sunset to sundown, and there are three watches in the night, four-hour intervals from sunset to sundown. The 90th Psalm refers to this watch of the night as a thousand years. He said, “A thousand years is like yesterday when it is over or as a watch in the night” (verse 4).And so, you have no idea how long these things grow in your world, because you started it and they grow and grow. So I find it a very wonderful thing to start the day as though the day came to an end, and the end was according to your desire. For if this principle—-and I haven’t found anyone who can dispute—if the principle holds good forever, and for all of us, and we can’t mock God, we can’t deceive him, well then, if all things bring forth after their kind, and my imaginal act was the act of sowing the seed, well then, select the most marvelous seed in the world. So I do it daily. Don’t wait for a problem.

Q: In that same 119th Psalm, the 79th verse, “Let those that fear thee turn unto me and those that have known thy testimonies.”A: Excellent. I find that Psalm the most beautiful thing, just to read it.Q: Neville, in the hunger for the promise as you mentioned, and it cannot be induced, is this intense feeling of this hunger the signal that that would happen in this or another time sequence or…?A: As far as I’m concerned, I can’t conceive of anyone here tonight who would brave this kind of weather tonight to come here who is not hungry for that promise. I just can’t conceive that you’d be here were you not hungry…but really hungry. The hunger spoken of in the Book of Amos, “I will send a hunger upon the land,” well, the land spoken of is Adam. Adam is the red earth and this [body] is the Adam. He’ll send a hunger upon him that only an experience of God can satisfy. But you see, no one can tell you when it’s going to happen. It could happen tonight. It comes just like a thief in the night.

Q: It says, “Fear the Lord.” But if you fear the Lord, you couldn’t love him.

A: Well, the word is unwisely translated. The word fear is “to revere, to respect.” I have found that respect and love, as far as I’m concerned, they’re synonymous. You never love anything you don’t respect. Now, your respect may be moved by, well, take a piece of furniture, and you treat it as though…with great indifference. Someone comes to your house one day who knows furniture. Maybe you got if from your grandmother and you thought this old thing may be falling apart, and you didn’t really treat it well. And some antique dealer comes through and he said, “You know what you have here, sir?” He said, “Yes, I got it from my grandmother.” “Well, would you like to part with it?” “Well, I don’t know, maybe.” “I’ll give you 3,000 for it.” Instantly you fall in love with it. The minute you go through the door, you clean it up, you put it to the side, and anyone who is about to treat it harshly, as you’ve done through the years, you stop them. You see that no one’s going to touch that thing because now it has value…you respect it.

Now, we bring that from the so-called inanimate object into the world of people, and you love those you respect. When respect goes through the window, love goes through the window. And so, if respect goes there is no love. If you can treat your mate with indifference and treat her, or she treats you, in some casual way, there’s no respect, there’s no love. There could be passion, yes, it could be that, I’m not denying that, but I mean who you love, love and respect. And respect is the “fear” of the Lord.

Q: Neville, when two minds or two people want the same thing at the same time, what happens?A: If ten people wanted the same thing at the same time, I would tell them all the same story, I really would. I have had women say to me, “I want that man for a husband.” They don’t know if the man is married, if he’s available, if he wants them or not. That one or no one! Well, one question I’ve always asked after they make that bold assertion, “If he dropped dead right now, you still want to get married?” Nine times out of ten she said “I suppose I would,” therefore, he can’t be the only thing in your world. If he dropped dead this very moment and you are in the mood you want to get married, then he can’t be the only one. I have had the privilege of going down the aisle with them, and it was not that one. And the little sheepish smile on their face…and they wonder how foolish they could have been when they thought he was the only one. People always must justify their behavior.

Well, I would say to anyone who wanted the same object…I know…like the little lady with the hat whose story I told. And she wanted a certain hat, but she would never pay that money for it, because she wasn’t in the habit of paying that sort of money for a hat. But she wore it, as I told her to wear it, just as though she had it, and a friend of hers bought the hat thinking she wanted it more than any hat in the window or in the store. When she got it home she didn’t want the hat at all, but she didn’t take it back. She called my friend who had worn the hat in her Imagination and gave her the hat. So, both got the hat. One bought it, had the dubious pleasure of wearing it for an hour, and then gave it to my friend who had real pleasure in owning it. It was the only way that God could get her to get that hat, by giving it to her through a lady (which is himself extended) who had the money to buy the hat, who was in the habit of buying hats at that price, when the one who spoke to me about it had never bought a hat anywhere near that price. If she had all the money in the world, she would have found it most difficult to part with the money to buy that hat. But having worn the hat, it came into the world in the only way that it could come…as a gift.

I have bought suits and wondered what possessed me when I picked out the suit length, and then gave it to others. Well, they were praying, too, and I was the instrument through which their prayer was answered. That happens every day in real estate. We’ve got to have this house, and so you have to have it; like it for a year, two years; then you wonder what possessed you, and you get rid of it. Someone wants it eagerly, so they come into it. And they want it, it’s their house now. But it was yours for awhile. And this is a constant change all over the world, because man you can’t muzzle him. You can put him in a dungeon, confine him physically, but you can’t confine him in Imagination; can’t stop him imagining.

Any other questions, please?

Q: I found another curious thing in the 119th, again, of “I have seen the end of thy perfection,” which is itself kind of a curious statement and then it says, “But thy testimonies are extremely broad.” Or maybe it’s “Thy commandments are extremely broad.” That seems like such a curious phrase.

A: It is, and yet it’s a true one. “I have seen the end of thy perfection, and yet his testimonies.” What testimonies? The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. He’s speaking of that testimony. And so here, “Your testimonies”…he’s addressing the Lord…”So thy testimonies are the spirit of prophecy.” You prophesied this perfection, you prophesied the coming of this promise, and yet your testimony is so broad. You’ve told me so much and so many things in it. ___(??) confined it only to the promise. You give me your law, you give me something that is more profound than the law which is forgiveness; and yet, the one doesn’t rub out the other…seems to encompass the other. And the day will come, you’ll give me the promise, and the promise will encompass everything. Because, when I receive the promise, I receive God, and everything is made subject to him.

All I ask and plead with you is to try it, and do it every day. Don’t rest on your laurels. If you got a fortune today, doesn’t really matter, keep on still living in the state of affluence, still live in the state of being wanted. Don’t rest upon any laurel in this world. Let no one tell you that you shouldn’t want it, that it is greedy, this, that and the other. You’re told, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). The whole thing is God’s, and he’s giving himself to you; therefore, all is yours. So you’re not really robbing anyone when you appropriate what is yours.

Q: What about the rich man going through the eye of the needle?

A: A rich man need not be rich in dollars and sense. The first Beatitude gives us a very clear picture of what he means by wealth, because he speaks of the poor in spirit, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:3). Well, there are very few people poor in spirit that feel…I got a letter today from my ex-wife pleading with me to go and join the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and sent me all kinds of things. Well, she sends these things every week, sends all these things, and then asks you for an extra twenty dollars. Jehovah is her only supply. But suddenly they call me Jehovah because I’m her supply. So she wants an extra twenty for this or an extra twenty for that, and she only has one supply. One day, my father gave her a very large sum of money. She took it, then she said to him, “You know, the only God that I recognize is my Jehovah. He’s the only one that gives me anything.” My father said—-he was very quick on the trigger—-“They’ve called me everything in this world but God, and now they’ll call me God.” God is my only supply…he’d just given her a very large sum of money when she pulled this line on him. So you get all…(tape ends).