He Has Put Eternity into the Mind of Man

Tonight’s thought is taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes, the 3rd chapter, 11th verse. This is considered the most disputed verse in the book. Man refuses to accept it because it doesn’t make sense and man is a rational being. But those who wrote the Bible, or took it down I should say, were not writing rational thoughts. They were inspired and they were writing their vision. This entire book does injury to man’s rational side, for to him everything is vanity, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. `No one knows who Qoheleth is, but he hints at it—and bear in mind this is a mystery—so the book opens with a certain claim, “The words of Qoheleth, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” The last chapter invites us all to leave everything and follow just the collected works of one shepherd, for the Bible tells us who that shepherd is. He is telling you who he is when he tells you “son of David,” but it’s a mystery, for in the scriptures there is no son of David whose name is Qoheleth. So in spite of certain scholars who try to say Solomon, there is no Solomon hinted in it.

But the verse that we are taking tonight, we have to go all over the Bible to support it. It is, “God has made everything beautiful in its time.” That is denied by our reason: a child comes in deformed, mentally retarded, injured and, here, “God has made everything beautiful in its time.” May I tell you, it’s a true story; it’s right in its time. Now we’ll go on, “God has put eternity into man’s mind yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” He’s put eternity in man’s mind. Well, again, man claims it can’t be done. To understand what he means by eternity we must understand the meaning of the word Olem, for that’s the word. Its interpretation can only be given if we know the real meaning of the word Olem. You pass a cemetery, Beth Olem (the same word Olem) and Beth means “a home, a house, one’s eternal home” when one goes through that cemetery. But he doesn’t mean that. The cemetery is earth. This world here is the cemetery called Beth Olem. He enters eternity here, that is, in his mind; everything here is in his Imagination, everything.

To understand it you must go back to the Hebraic mind who wrote it, who took it down. In Hebrew thought history consists of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into a whole. This concentrated time in which all the generations of man are fused and from which all things come is called eternity. Just think of it, a complete compression of every conceivable thing that man could ever do, all in just one compressed section of time. The Old Testament is that block. Every frightening thing in the world is openly described in the Bible. There isn’t a crime that you read about in the daily press, not a war, that isn’t openly described in the Bible. Talk about rubbing out a whole race, that’s described in the Bible; a whole country, that’s described in the Bible. And so, Blake made the statement: “Eternity exists, and all things in eternity, independent of creation which was an act of mercy.” So here, in man’s mind are all the things that it takes for man to be anything in the world that he wants to be.

Now, he tells us there is nothing new under the sun. He makes the statement: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is 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 will there be any remembrance of things to come later among those who will come after,” no remembrance whatsoever. Now he paints a word picture of what he himself has accomplished: great wealth. He amassed great wealth through his own toil and he knows he will die and leave it to one who did not toil for it. He says, “That is vanity of vanity.” He built great buildings and he knows that they will crumble or go into the hands of one who did not toil. He sought out wisdom and became the wisest of men, but the end was like the fool, both turned to dust. He mentions all these things and then concludes it’s all vanity.

Now bear in mind, the New Testament interprets the Old—it’s not the other way around. These were inspired men. As we are told, “No prophecy of scripture ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” So they aren’t his words; he’s recorded them. He’s not trying to set up some workable philosophy of life. He has simply recorded it on a certain level where this block exists…all in the mind of man.

Now, let me define for you the word Olem. It does mean eternity if you remember what I’ve said concerning the Hebrew’s mind and what history means to it. It contains all the generations of men and all their experiences, and that is called eternity. But the word is also translated “the world.” It’s translated “something hidden, something concealed, something out of sight, a secret; a youth, a lad, a stripling, a young man.” These are all definitions of the word Olem. They’re all right. Every one can be used in that statement. He did put eternity into the mind of man. As we quoted last Thursday a passage from this strange magazine: “Only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain the immensity of space.” Only the Imagination of man is vast enough to contain eternity and all that you could ever, all these combinations, bring out, and be anything that you want in this world. Yet he speaks of recurrence, and you might think that it’s going to be a peculiar, monotonous recurrence. No, he means everything taking place took place and is going to take place, because you draw it out of this one block of eternity. But everything is in it, and you call the combinations and play them; but the end, as he sees it, is vanity. What are we waiting for, he’s asking. We’re waiting for something, because here is complete recurrence. No matter how rich you are you leave it behind to one who didn’t toil for it. No matter how wise you are you leave it behind and join the fool in the same grave; and you join all the weak people if you’re strong, all in the same grave. That all seems so vain and so fruitless!

So we must be waiting for something, and that was concealed. For the word Olem means “something hidden.” What was hidden that he couldn’t see? What was hidden from the prophets? Well, now listen to the words: “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation. They inquired what person or time was indicated by the spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory.” It was revealed to them they were serving not themselves but you. All these characters of the Old Testament were all in you. They were serving not themselves; they were serving you when the fullness of time arrived. No one knew when, so he asked, “What person or time was indicated by the spirit of Christ within them when prophesying this state?” Well, when the fullness of time had come, only when it came, could it be revealed that which was hidden in the minds of man.

Now, here is what is hidden. Think of Jesus Christ as the personification of God; just think of him that on his face you see the glory of God. So when you are told in scripture, God said, “Let us make man…” think of the Elohim, the gods, and together they form one who personifies all, that’s Christ Jesus, think of that. Now, think of humanity, God’s love, and one personifies humanity and that is David. When you see humanity, God’s love, God’s beloved—he’s in love with mankind, with humanity—it’s personified as a single youth. For eternity is youth, it’s not an old man with a scythe. So when you meet eternity personified, you see David. When you meet God personified, you see him reflected in the face of Christ Jesus. So think of these two.

So the one now speaking—the son of David—why the son of David when in the New Testament he tells you that David calls you Father? We’ll come to that. Yet he claims in this that he is the son of David, son of humanity. He is buried in man, in humanity; therefore, he has to come forth from humanity, and cannot deny he is the Son of man. But Son of man that comes forth, we’re told, shall be Son of God. The words are: I will raise up from you (humanity) when you sleep with your fathers…I will bring forth from you a son. He shall be my son and I his Father (2 Sam. 7:12). So here, he’s bringing forth from humanity which is David, a son. But the son that comes forth is going to produce the reversal of order that you find all through scripture: For man matures when he becomes his own father’s father. So, who comes forth from David? Jesus Christ. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27). He cannot emerge from me were he not now in me. Christ could not come forth from you were he not now in you. For you’re told he’s son of David—not a little boy called David that personifies humanity. When you meet David you’re seeing the personification of the whole vast history that you have gone through, which is humanity. You’re then his father when you meet him.

Now listen to the words as given us in the Book of Samuel, and three words are used in three verses, one after the other, and each word is Olem, translated differently. But first, a promise is made that the man who conquers the enemy of Israel will be set free—the father will be set free. So here comes the man who has conquered the enemy of Israel, the giant Goliath. The king said to his lieutenant Abner, “Abner, whose son is that youth?” and Abner replied, “As your soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell.” He said, “Enquire whose son the stripling is.” No one knows. So he’s brought before the king with the head in his hands of the giant, and he said, “Whose son are you, young man?” and he replied, “I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” And now the king’s order must be given and the promise fulfilled: The father must be set free. He confesses who his father is. His father, he tells you, is Jesse. Jesse means “I am.” That’s all that it means. The word “Jesse” is “any form of the verb to be”… I am (1 Sam. 17:56).

The day will come you will know why it is true God put eternity into the mind of man and man can’t find it. He has put eternity in such a way that man can’t find out what God has done from the beginning until the end. In the end you will; for as the end comes, there’s going to be explosion after explosion after explosion in that wonderful head of yours, and the thing that was hidden in the beginning will come forward to confront you. Every one will confront you. An entirely different drama begins to unfold within you and the end of this world is at an end for you. The world remains…people think the world is coming to an end…it comes to an end for the individual. It doesn’t come to an end for a group of people, like coming to the end of this world, burning it up. No, your world comes to an end when the final drama begins to unfold within you.

So, it was not given to the prophets to know, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours. Grace is an unmerited gift, an unmerited good. In other words, it is God’s gift of himself to you; you can’t earn it. So they heard of this grace. For grace is mentioned in the Old Testament, too. You read it in Zechariah—in fact all through the Bible—but in Zechariah, they were about to put on the very top of the stone of the temple—the 4th chapter, 7th verse of Zechariah—and they do it amidst shouts of “Grace, grace to it.” So the temple cannot be finished until Christ is brought forth from humanity. He comes forth singly, one after the other, the same Christ. And he only knows he is Christ when David appears to the individual from whom he comes, and David calls that individual Father. For in the Bible David calls him “Adonay,” which means “my Father, my Lord, my God, the Rock of my salvation.” So David comes out and he is youth. One of the definitions of Olem is “eternal youth,” and when you see him he is an eternally young, beautiful, handsome fellow. It’s David, a single man.

One night you’re going to have this wonderful joy. You will see David in the distance, this radiant being, and when you approach, he is a multitude of nations. And then you know he summarizes and personifies humanity. You will see Jesus Christ and you will know he personifies the gods, the Elohim, all of us. Therefore, who are you when he personifies all? We are the Elohim who fell asleep for a purpose. We emptied ourselves of our primal form; and took upon ourselves the limitation of this that was hidden in the mind of man, in our eternal sleep having passed through this eternal death to awaken to eternal life; expanded beyond what we were when we emptied ourselves of the eternal form, and then took upon ourselves the limitation of the human form. He is not concerned with John Brown, Neville Goddard—these are parts of the eternal structure of this time-block. They are all parts of it, the whole vast world.

Have you ever had the experience of looking up and seeing on your mind’s eye, on the screen of your face, inwardly, the block? There isn’t a thing you can think of that isn’t there and it comes out, it actually comes out and takes on a three-dimensional quality. You might be lost in it if you don’t know what you’re doing. You can become completely lost, like an insane person. But if you know what you’re doing, you are in control of all as to bring them out of this concentrated block. And everyone mentioned in scripture is in that block, and you can bring them out in different combinations, different relationships, different, well, father-son relationships, man-wife relationships, any relationship. All the enemies in the world you can bring out. If you don’t know what you are doing, it will scare you to death, because they become alive the minute you detach them from the block. They take on a three-dimensional reality, and become alive, and then they start. But if you know what you’re doing, then you know these words also from Qoheleth in the 4th chapter, 15th verse: “I have seen all the living that move about under the sun, as well as that second youth, who is going to stand in his place; there was no end to the people; and he was over all of them. Yet those who will come after will not rejoice in him. This too is vanity and a chasing of the wind” (Eccles.).

Now, this is what I mean “he is over all of us.” Take the block and fragment it,—as we are fragmented now, this is the fragmented block—and he is over all, animating all. The day will come you will have the experience and taste of the power of the age to come. You will take a section of that animated block and stop it; and it can’t move—men can’t move, birds can’t fly, leaves can’t fall—everything is frozen as though made of marble. And then you will release it from within you and it will move and continue to fulfill its purpose. After that, the faith you had before, which you would argue to support, you know now that faith is not justified through an argument but only through an experience. Now you know, you know what it means now to have life in yourself. For the purpose of it all, when the time is fulfilled and then you come forward from this block, you have now life in yourself. Until then you thought you had life in yourself. And your friends died and you buried them.You knew the day would come that you would die and they would bury you. You thought we were living beings independent of something on the outside. We had no idea that we were being animated from without until this moment in time as you begin to awake, you, too, taste of the power of the age to come. And tomorrow, you’ll know that 15th verse of that 4thchapter of Ecclesiastes: “I saw all the living that move about under the sun, and that second youth who will stand in his place” and control. “Then I saw no end to the people; and he was over all of them. Yet those who will come after will not rejoice in him”—because they won’t believe it. They will not for one moment believe that we are all being animated from without.

And yet, while we’re animated we can choose and select if we know of these states. Without seeing the state you can still choose. You can choose the state of health, the state of wealth, the state of fame, the state of anything; and that state is personified in you when you see it. You can choose the state of poverty. So when Blake saw the block, he said to himself, now you know why “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” So you have a deadly dream of being taken advantage of? You’re right in a state. Someone doesn’t like you? You’re in another state. Someone likes you? You’re in another state. And all of these are states and they’re personified on the inside. If your eye would only open you would see it. But until the eye is open, you don’t even know they are states and they’re all hidden within you. So he has hidden eternity in the mind of man.

But the day will come that second youth…the second youth is Jesus Christ. David is collective humanity. Out of it, comes Jesus Christ and knows that he came out of man; but man is his offspring; man is his father. And man is forced by the personification called David to call him “Father.” And he knows now that he is the Lord; yet no way of knowing he was the Lord until David appeared and called him Lord. For David is God’s beloved: “This is my son, today I have begotten thee” (Ps. 2:7). That’s humanity. He’s in love with humanity. And now the gods are buried in humanity: “God became man that man may become God.” Not the reverse, man didn’t become God that God may become man; God became man that man may become God. He is pulling himself out of humanity, but individually when he pulls himself out. He pulls himself out of humanity and humanity is personified as David, so David appears before him, right out of his skull. It explodes like a real explosion and he stands right before you and calls you “Adonay,” calls you “my Father.” And only then do you know who you really are.

Everyone is going to have this experience, for the very simple reason God planned it as it would come out and as it would be consummated. For the very simple reason you can’t earn it. No man can earn it. That’s why we have today among our theologians the argument: Surely man can do something to earn it. You can’t earn it. It was God’s predetermined plan to actually sink himself in death. The mystery of life through death: “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. If it falls into the ground and dies, it brings forth much.” And so God actually entered death’s door, the human skull, and laid down in the grave of man, and shared ___(??) with man from within all of his visions of eternity, all of his nightmares, until the time is fulfilled. It must be fulfilled like a pregnancy. The child is conceived, but there must be an interval to fill time. And when that time is fulfilled, out will come Christ Jesus, for “Christ in man is the hope of glory.” Were he not in man he could not emerge from man, and he has to emerge from David. So the Bible begins in the New Testament: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David,” because that is prophecy. He comes out of humanity, but because humanity is the beloved son of God, it can’t be the father of God. So, comes the reversal, and David automatically makes the statement, “My Father.” And so, out of man comes God. And know “ye are gods”? Then bring my beloved Son before me and let me call him “Son” and let him call me “Father.” And it happens exactly like that.

So, I hope you know what God placed in the mind of man. Buried in you is really eternity, but put in such a way that you cannot find out from the beginning to the end what God has done. Only in the end you will know. But God isn’t taken by surprise. To God all events are present, including the end of all things, as told us in 1st Peter. The end of all things is before him now: He sees you as Christ Jesus. He isn’t waiting for it; he knows the end. But you are immersed in the body of death for that purpose. So he sees not only all things coexisting, he sees the end of all things, and the end of all is Christ Jesus. “I am the Alpha and the Omega; I am the beginning and the end; the first and the last” (Rev.1:17;21:6).

So here, Paul tells us and Peter tells us, in fact, they all, if you read the Epistles: “Set your hope fully on the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13). Revelation to Paul meant the unveiling of God, an act of God in self-revealing: he unveils himself in you as you. He set up a series of events, mystical events by which he unveils himself in you. So I cannot conceive of any hope that man should dwell upon more than that moment in time when the time is fulfilled and Jesus Christ unveils himself within you. Because Qoheleth said, I made money; I amassed more money than anyone in the world; I was the wisest of all men, and yet my end was like the poor man. My end, the wise man, was like the fool’s and all these things were vanity of vanities, all is vanity. He knew tomorrow someone would come and build up much from the same block of time buried in the mind of man.

So tonight, if you believe me that everything is within you, you can single out the state of success. Well, how would you be successful? You wear it as you would this suit of clothes. You put it on and feel natural in the mood of being successful, just put it on. Just as God wears man, you wear the state and you can put it on. So you single out anything you want in this world and dare to assume that you are already that which you desire to be until the desire has been appeased. You don’t long any more. You feel it, you feel natural. Now the time will fulfill itself in that too. All things take time. Time is a facility for change in experience; space is a facility for experience. But a change in experience takes time, so all changes take time. So you wear a change of mood and it’s going to take its time. It may take a day, it may take a week, it may take a month. But that mood I now call (in Habakkuk) the vision. You visualize yourself by seeing yourself reflected in the faces of friends. They see you as the man you want them to see. Now, “that vision has its own appointed hour: it ripens, it will flower. If to you it seems long, wait, for it is sure and it will not be late”…not for its own appointed hour (2:3). And so the feeling of success has its appointed hour. For you change from not being successful into that which is successful. Alright, that shows you that time is a facility for changes in experience. But that now has its own little appointed hour. Don’t you try to aid it. It’s like a pregnancy. You don’t aid a pregnancy after you discover that you are pregnant. In other words, one thing bear in mind, in spite of all the good men in the world who try to convince you that you’ve got to do something about it—all you do is make your selection and wear it. You were born physically by the action of powers not your own; you will be born spiritually by the action of powers beyond your own. You didn’t have a thing to do with your physical birth. And you aren’t going to have anything to do with your spiritual birth when the time is fulfilled, because God in you has impregnated you; he’s one with you, and that pregnancy is taking place.

But the prophets didn’t know it and they were confused. So this is what they said: “In the last days scoffers will come scoffing…and they will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of time” (2 Pet. 3:3). They didn’t know how near they were to the fullness of time. And so, they will say, “Where is the coming?” They are looking for a man to come on the outside. No man comes on the outside. Resurrection is an event happening in this earthly experience of man the individual; it’s right here. So when he comes, he comes in the individual. He doesn’t come out of the clouds trying to conquer the world; he comes in the individual. And the drama as I have described it is true, just as I have told you, and it’s all related to things told in the Bible. It’s a true story, and the day will come you will be called to testify to the truth of God’s word. That’s all that you are going to testify to: Is it true? You will have the experience. You will go into the world and testify to the truth of his word. It’s all true.

So this that is buried in you sets you free, really, even though it turns to ash. The greatest success in the world turns to ash, because he has to leave it into the hands of one who didn’t earn it. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Why not select the best, even though you’re going to leave it anyway. I know that I must leave behind me my library, but I’m enjoying it while I am here. And I hope I can name the ones that I would think would enjoy it the most when I turn my eyes from this sphere, and let them have the library. That it cost me a fortune and it’s a lovely hand-picked library, yes, I know that. But someone tomorrow will enjoy the library. And any stocks and bonds that I may have, I have a daughter, a son, and wife, so they will get them. I don’t regret that. And so, what does it matter if you have to leave your toil and the amassed fortune to someone else who didn’t toil for it?

But he [Ecclesiastes] regretted that, because he couldn’t see the end. He saw only recurrence—this whole thing is going over and over and over—and when is it going to come to an end? Let it come to an end even though there is no real determined end. But there was an end hidden and he didn’t see it. He knew by the words that he had received that he had put Olem in man’s mind, he knew that; and Olem meant something hidden, something hidden away out of sight, something veiled, a youth. Well, what would a youth do in my mind? He didn’t know that David was the collective humanity. He didn’t know David would one day explode out of his Imagination and stand before him and call him Father. No one knew it until it first happened. And so, we are told: He is the first witness, the first who came from the dead, Jesus Christ. He rose from the dead, and came out of humanity, who, may I tell you, is dead.

Someday you’ll see it and you’ll stop them. You’ll walk the street and you’ll be able to arrest anything in motion and you’ll know the words: “He was over all of them. I saw all living that move about under the sun, and then I saw that second youth who came to stand in his place, and he is over all of them.” So then that second youth is born in you…because you are the Father of collective humanity, that’s the second youth. For, the choice of God is always the second. First of all, you had Cain. He rejected Cain and took Abel. Then you came down and you had Isaac. He was the second, Ishmael was the first. He rejected Ishmael, took Isaac. Then you had Esau and Jacob. He rejected Esau and took Jacob. Manasseh and Ephraim…rejected Manasseh, took Ephraim. And all the way down there is a reversal of order.

So here comes humanity out of which Christ Jesus comes, and humanity is his father because he came out of him. For the words are: “I will raise up your son after you who will come forth from your body. I will be his father and he shall be my son” (2 Sam. 7:12). That’s humanity, David. When the son comes out, David calls him Father. So who did God bring out? He brought out himself, so the son could then say, “I and my father are one” (John 10:30). He brings himself out of humanity and he does it individually. So you bear in mind, think of David as humanity. God is in love with humanity, and so in love with it he went in unto humanity and buried himself, laid himself down in humanity, in all the unnumbered Elohim. Then he comes out of humanity bearing the fruit of that long sleep of death. And now he returns to eternal life, expanded beyond that which he was when he emptied himself and buried himself in humanity.

So tonight, you single out a dream, a noble dream, for yourself or a friend. And trust it. Assume that your friend is telling you that he is, or she is, what they want to be…something that is lovely. Just assume it and feel natural in that assumption and see how it works. Because that block is completely interwoven and related. When you see it, it’s completely interwoven: “All things by a law divine in one another’s being mingle.” But here they are completely congealed and you gather them one by one. Blake called this the house of Los, because he fragmented it; he saw them all in lovely objective forms like statues. You can too.

The other day my wife said in a vision of hers she saw panels at the back of the room. She didn’t count them, but there were many, many panels and she was glued to just observing the panels. As she became lost in observation, just the panels, forms detached themselves from the panels and they came out into the room. Every one gave forth a form. At first it seemed to be a delightful thing, a very happy occurrence, something wonderful. The more it moved into the dancing form, the more it began to dance, the more she realized this is horror, this is sheer hell. And then for a moment…maybe she panicked for a moment…and then they all went right back into their panels and there they remained. You know what the word “panel” is in Hebrew? The same word as that which we translate “rib”: And he took a rib and made something out of it. The word “rib,” Zella, is panel. And so he draws out a rib and it becomes a living form. But it went back in when she lost control of her Imagination. She completely forgot how these things came out of sheer dead panels and became alive. Then she panicked, and they all went right back and assumed their previous patterns of that panel.

And the day will come you’ll do it. Until that moment in time when you leave this age and leave it forever because it has accomplished its purpose: You wore it, you went through hell with it, and you came out of it expanded in consciousness. For God is truth and truth is an ever-increasing illumination. There is no limit to expansion; there’s only a limit to contraction. There’s no limit to translucency; there’s only a limit to opacity. So when you come out of this opaque state, you’ll be more luminous than you were when you entered it and more expanded than you were when you entered it. And then tomorrow, we, together as one being, yet without loss of identity, we will map the fifth act for a still greater luminosity and expansion of being.

Now let us go into the Silence.* *

Q: Do we have to come back to this earth experience?

A: You don’t need it.

Q: Well, this recurrence…until we have all these experiences?

A: Not a thing dies in this world. The little flower that blooms once blooms forever. Everything is alive here because God is wearing it. But when he has accomplished his purpose, where he comes forth from it, and knows he is the father who sank himself into it by reason of his Son who calls him “Father,” then he enters an entirely different age where we all enter expanded. We go back in our primal form, our pre-natal garment. But here, I cannot tell you how long. But it has its own appointed hour and it’s not going to be late. Blake says 6,000 years, but who knows? This night you could be 5,999. You do not know. He claims it takes 6,000 years for the hatching-out process. That’s what Blake said and he said it at least two dozen times in all of his works. He said, “I know it from my own experience.” He, speaking from experience: “I walk up and down the 6,000 years and it’s all before me—present, past and future seen.” And he pleads with them “to listen carefully to the voice of the bard who present, past and future sees, whose ears have heard the Holy Word and walked among the ancient trees.” And so he said that he actually did it and he knows it’s 6,000—incubation 6,000 years. And the prophets wondered and wondered, and suddenly it happened. It comes like a thief in the night. So we have no spiritual doctors to look on our pregnancy and tell us when we may expect it. Because they’re going to judge from appearances and think it should happen to what they consider the nice person, what they consider good by outward appearances; and someone in rags may be this night right on the night of delivery. But I cannot endorse the 6,000 years; I do not know from experience. But as far as this block, we don’t leave it until we come out and come out as Christ Jesus.

Q: (inaudible)

A: ___(??) I’m not speaking of reincarnation. You never lose your identity, not in eternity. You could be a poor man or be a rich man and still be John Brown. You could be a known person or unknown person and still be John Brown. I am speaking of infinite states but worn by one being wearing it. You are identified, you are individualized, and you tend forever toward greater and greater individualization. You don’t lose identity. The gods are known and we are known to each other individually.

Q: I should think that your state would improve. I don’t mean in a material way.

A: But, my dear, states don’t change, states are permanent. We, the occupant, move through states. For instance, this is California, I’m in Southern California. If I leave tonight for Chicago, California remains to be occupied by anyone who wants to live here. It remains permanent relative to Chicago, but I, the occupant, the pilgrim, I go to Chicago and then partake of all that Chicago offers. So, I move into a state and the state is unlovely, but I am the wearer of it. I am not transformed by the state I’m wearing. I am having an experience. But the being wearing it could tomorrow, observing what he’s doing now is a foolish state, get out of it. So, many a person tonight who is a very, very wealthy person who would brag of his wealth, he could tomorrow, not knowing he’s only in a state, find himself poorer than a church mouse…and wouldn’t know he’s in a state. My father had a saying, “Money doesn’t care who owns it.” Doesn’t care who owns it.

Q: (inaudible)

A: No, it didn’t begin…in the sense…for instance, they are always coming in. This is for hatching, and God is always entering his world to expand himself. He’s always coming in. So it’s not a mass exodus; it’s an individual journey. As we are told in Isaiah: “I will gather you one by one, O my people of Israel.” One by one, you’re so unique, you’re so altogether wonderful in the eyes of the gods who are waiting for you that you can’t be gathered in groups. It’s a rejoicing in heaven when that stone is put upon the temple, and they call it “grace, grace to it”—and you are it. And it’s all a gift.

Q: Explain the statement you made “animated from without.”

A: All right, there’s a story told in the Book of John, the grand trial, that in a number of months we will enact it on Earth, and forget that it’s only portrayed here. The drama takes place in man. So he’s brought before Pilate and Pilate asks him a question, and he wouldn’t answer Pilate. Pilate asks him, “Who are you?” and he wouldn’t answer. He said, “So you will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have the power to set you free, or to crucify you?” And he answered, “You have no power over me were it not given to you from above; therefore he who delivered me into your hands he has the greater sin” (John19:9-11). It is from above. And you, tomorrow, will stand in the place of the second youth, and you will be in control, putting them through the paces, while they dream either noble dreams or ignoble dreams. But it’s an animated wheel from without. And yet within it all, we are free to change states.

Q: Do you think that after man has laid down one garment here that he comes back and dons another right away, or is there a period of rest in between the wheel of recurrence?

A: First of all, we think that reality is confined to this Earth and it ends where our senses cease to register it. It doesn’t. The world into which I go often and meet people who are supposedly dead, they are just as real and just as bigoted and just as limited as they were when they were here. I meet people…there is no transforming power in death, what we call death. You’re going to meet people dreaming—you dream there as you dream here. We think this is not a dream, but that may be a dream. This doesn’t seem to be a dream because the dream is so vivid it becomes objective. But when you are in a dream, and the dream is real, it’s objective too. And when you return and contemplate the dream, you say, well, it was subjective because now it isn’t objective. But while in it when you thought of this world, this would be subjective and that objective. Subjectivity and objectivity are wholly determined for the individual by the level on which his consciousness is focused.

And so, if my consciousness is focused there, well, I haven’t transformed myself unless I change my state. Transformation in the true sense comes when Christ is born in man. And there are only two births spoken of in scripture—one here and one spiritual. One from below which is called the birth from Hagar; and one from above, called Sarah or called Jerusalem. Jerusalem from above and Jerusalem from below— one from the womb of woman and one from the skull of generic man—and so they speak of two births. But it would be no earthly good to me to cease to be Neville and become, well, some other being. I have met so many people in this present life ___(??) who played the part of Napoleon. Well, Napoleon was only a few years ago, and all these are my contemporaries and they all were Napoleon. Well, no wonder he went mad. They’re all in it playing Napoleon. If one person told me in a letter a thousand years ago that he knew he would play Napoleon, or if someone told me, say, before I was born…but not all the people in my generation all played that one character, because we only had one Napoleon. We have quite a few in the madhouse, I know, but I mean only one in history. And they all played Napoleon. A friend of mine said to her husband one day, “You know, George, I just feel that I must have been some great lady in the court of Louis the 15th or Louis the 16th or 14th. I can just see myself now sweeping down the stairs.” He said, “So can I, my dear, with a little pail in your hand.”

Goodnight.