He Is Meditating Me: The Rock

Tonight’s subject is “He Is Meditating Me.” The principal source of religious insight is revelation. Revelation makes us sure; without it all seems obscure. You can sit down and rationalize from now until the end of time on this greatest of all books, the Bible. Unless it’s revealed to you, I do not see how you can really grasp it. It is God’s word, and, may I tell you, it is true; every word of it is true. All the symbolism is true, all the imagery is true, and it gradually unfolds within the individual. Everyone will experience it.

So tonight, in this strange subject “He Is Meditating Me”, well, who is meditating? When I say, “I and my Father are one,” am I the being really meditating myself, projecting on the screen of space this thing called Neville, having experience within the limitations of these dimensions? Well, listen to the words of Peter. It’s the first epistle of Peter, the second chapter: “O come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men, but in God’s sight chosen and precious. Become living stones, built into a spiritual house… that you may declare the oneness and the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his light” (verses 4, 5, 9). Read it in the second chapter of Peter’s first epistle: He calls us out of darkness into light.

Well, many years ago, 1934 to be exact, I was sitting in the Silence, not thinking of anything in particular, just simply contemplating this interior structure of the brain as it were. If you turn your eyes, mentally turn them inward and just let them rest upon the interior of your skull, in a little while all these dark convolutions of the brain grow luminous and they fascinate you. The whole thing becomes liquid and golden liquid light. So while watching this wonderful golden liquid light, suddenly out of the nowhere came a stone, a rock. There’s nothing more sterile, nothing more opaque, nothing more contracted as far as imagery is concerned than a rock. So here was a rock, this quartz. As I looked at it, just simply looking at it, not wondering why it’s before me, but there it is before me, and suddenly it became fragmented, broken into unnumbered pieces. Then all these little pieces were gathered together, but not re-formed into the rock (the original form) but into a human shape. And here it takes human form. Here, I am seeing a man seated in the lotus posture. I became intrigued. As I looked closer, I’m looking at myself. I am the being that I’m contemplating. Here he is seated in the lotus posture and just the very image of the being I knew myself to be. As I looked at him, he began to glow and he increased in luminosity until he reached the limit of intensity, and then he exploded. Then I returned to this level with only the memory of what I had experienced.

We are told, “The Rock, his work is perfect,” the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy. The rock, which is now inanimate, “his” work, it becomes personal now. What was a rock takes on the form of a person… “his” work is perfect. “And of the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful and you have forgotten the God who gave you birth” (verse 18). Here, a Rock begot me and God gave me birth, so God is the Rock. That’s Deuteronomy 32. Here’s a Rock, it begot me, and I forgot the God who gave me birth. If I was begotten by a Rock and born of God, then God and the Rock are one. So here, the invitation: “O come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men, and yet in God’s eyes chosen and precious.” It tells you: you will become living stones and be built into this spiritual structure. Then you are told that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who really begot you, these wonderful deeds of him who brought you and called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, from darkness into light. Now, when I had the experience I didn’t understand it. I simply recorded it. Understanding comes over the years. You record the experience. You can’t deny it, you had it. It’s not theory, you didn’t seek it, it just happened. And then suddenly, as years move on, awakening comes and you begin to understand what has happened to you.

Now, last year a book was given to me. I read the review and my daughter and my wife said, “What do you want for Father’s Day?” Well, we don’t share presents for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and all these things. But they said it to me in a kidding manner and I answered in the same manner, I said, I have just read a review of a book. It’s Carl Jung’s latest work and so I would like to have it. So I gave them the title Memories, Dreams and Reflections. He died in 1961 and the book came out in 1961. So it’s not only his latest, it’s his last work. It is really an autobiography; although it is not claimed to be one, it is written in the first person. Well, in this, Jung made this observation. Mine happened in 1934, what I’ve just told you. His happened in 1944—not the full vision, only the middle section of the vision. He found himself in 1944 in a dream, but in a dream awake. And true vision is when you are in a dream awake. This, you may not know it, this is a vision. But because you are completely awake, you don’t call this a dream because you are in it and you are awake. For when you are really in a dream and you awake in it, it’s just like this. So a vision is in a dream awake; what Blake called “fourfold vision.” So this is the four-fold vision of Blake. But we are now completely awake in it and it has continuity, so we don’t even realize it is still a dream.

But this is the vision of which I speak. So, he found himself in a dream, walking along a little country road, and he came upon this wayside chapel. The door was ajar so he stepped in. As he walked into this little chapel, he walked toward the altar. And to his amazement there was no image of the Virgin and there was not anything that would remind him of a Christian chapel, yet it was. There was no crucifix and no image of the Virgin, but in place of these two images, this wonderful display of flowers. And then, looking down below the altar he noticed a Yogi seated in the lotus posture; and looking closer, this figure had his face. It startled him; and he awoke frightened, and said he to himself: “So it is he who is meditating me. He has a dream and I am it.” Then said he to himself, “And I knew that when he awakened I would no longer be.” Then said he—being the great analyst that he was—“This is a parable and what is its message to me? For here I am being confronted with something from the very depths of my soul, what is it trying to tell me?” And said he to himself, “The central jet of truth that this thing is trying to convey to me is this: on this level of my being I think this is causation and that is effect; and here now it’s revealed to me, that is causation and this is effect. That myself retired in meditation, and meditated this human form to have the experience in three dimensions of space and time; and then by this experience, I would increase my awareness, and this increased awareness would further my realization. So the whole story is to reverse in me my thinking about causation: causation isn’t here; it is there. And I saw the being who is meditating me.” He didn’t see the rock and he didn’t see the light.

The limit of contraction is the rock, the most sterile, the most opaque that you could think of in this world. If you thought of an image to convey these qualities, think of a rock, a quartz. And then it becomes fragmented. And then when re-gathered, it doesn’t take the original form, it takes the form of man. Then the man glows, becomes a breathing, living being, and then it glows and glows and glows, and reaching the limit of brightness it vanishes. The job is completed and it vanishes. And we are told, “I have brought you out of darkness into light.” For God is light: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). And yet I do not lose my identity, I do not lose the being that I am; only I inherit the greater being, the light of the world. So here, in this vision revealed to me, I will now share it with you. What is the stone then that men will reject? “Come unto him, to that living stone men rejected.” What is the stone? For the stone I saw was only a symbol. I certainly was not the stone. What is the stone, that opaque contracted state that men rejected as causation?—your own wonderful human Imagination.

The Bible recognizes only one source of dream, only one: all dreams and visions proceed from God. Well, I don’t have to be a giant in mind to discover who he is. I stand here and I think of my home that I left an hour ago. Well, that’s a dream, a daydream, but a dream. It doesn’t differ from the dream of the night save in one respect: when I fall asleep tonight and I have a dream, in that dream I am the victim of my attention, not the master of my attention. Here, in a daydream I am in control of the direction of my attention. So I can simply direct it and if it doesn’t please me, I can change it. But in sleep this night, if I dream, I may not be awake as I am now and become the victim of the direction of my attention rather than its master.

So, if all dreams proceed from God, but all dreams, I don’t have to go very far to discover who God is. For here, in this moment I was sitting in the Silence and suddenly before me comes a rock. Only a symbol, a symbol of what was recorded in scripture in Deuteronomy 32 and all through scripture, really: Isaiah 28, “I am laying in Zion a stone.” Zion is called the eternal home of God. “I am laying in Zion a stone.” And here, in this Book of Peter… and Peter, the word Peter means rock. The very word Peter is a rock, is a stone. So what is this stone symbolizing in my world? It’s symbolizing my own wonderful human Imagination that I, through the years, rejected. In my search for God I thought he was another and found him because others thought he was out there. They showed me pictures of him and showed me all kinds of things of a God, and in my innocence I believed them. And so, I kept on rejecting the stone, the living stone. I hadn’t touched it. And one day, I touched it and then I became a living stone. The stone became alive. You read it carefully—it begins on the fourth verse—how by finding it, you that you rejected, accepting it you are accepted. By association you touch it, and you that you rejected become a living stone. And then you can declare all these wonderful deeds of he who called you out of darkness into light.

So here, we call that the projection on the screen of space of things I would approach. And then I knew, in the depths of my soul, I knew I would one day accept the one I had rejected. For I could not believe, trained as I was trained, that I, and I myself, was the cause of the phenomena of my life. I didn’t believe it, that I was the cause of all the strange things happening to me, all the misfortunes, all the strange things in the world. I couldn’t believe it, so I rejected that. I rejected the stone that begot me, and the God who gave me birth.

One day I found him, I accepted him, and then came the unfolding of all this wonderful symbolism as recorded in scripture, all the imagery, and it’s all imagery. Who would have thought on reading that that you were in conflict in the depths of your own soul and really encounter the symbol of the stone? But who saw it? I saw it. Well, where did it come from? It came out of my Imagination. For if all dreams proceed from God, and I know exactly what happened to me… I sat in the Silence thinking of nothing in particular, turning my attention inward into my brain and contemplating these dark convolutions of the brain, and as always happens they grew luminous. As they grew luminous, I am simply looking at this luminous cloud forming in my head, and suddenly out of nowhere, comes this quartz, this enormous stone. I didn’t do a thing, just simply looked at it. And it fragmented, the whole thing broke into unnumbered pieces. Not a piece was lost but re-gathered by some invisible hand. As it was re-gathered, it was not the original form, now it takes the form of man.

So Jung makes the statement that “I myself retired in meditation, and meditated me in human form.” But he does not mention the fact that his dream encompassed the stone and the light. That out of this dark opaque state suddenly came light, light beyond the wildest dream of man. But I tell you, you have meditated yourself and brought yourself right into being right here in this world, that you may increase in experience and by this increase of awareness further your own wonderful self-realization. And that is forever. There is no limit to translucency. There is only a limit to contraction, to opacity, and the stone is the symbol of the limit of sterility, the limit of opacity, the limit of contraction. But there is no limit to man’s expansion, man’s translucency. So when I saw this thing reaching seemingly a limit, it exploded, proving to me that there could never be a limit to the expansion, to the translucency of my own being. So, everyone is simply on the way, expanding, after he sees this wonderful thing taking place within him.

Until you see it, may I tell you, share with me what I have experienced. You don’t have to wait to see it to test it in this world. For if all things come from him and without him there’s not a thing made that was made, I don’t have to wait to prove it. I just have to test it this night. And actually, if I know that my own Imagination is God, the rock that I rejected, the God I rejected… I went in search of a strange God, some God that didn’t really exist, that someone painted on the wall, or carved in wood, and some peculiar thing outside of myself. But then, if this really is what all along I rejected and now I will accept, then comes testing me ___(??). So we are told: “Come test yourselves and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless of course you fail to meet the test!” If you want to search it, it’s the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians: “Come test yourselves and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?—unless of course you fail to meet the test” (verse 5). Well, if he is in me and by him all things were made, and without him was nothing made that was made, I certainly should be able to test him. Well, how did he work in this world? Read this now, “He called a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.” That is the fourth chapter, the seventeenth verse of Paul’s letter to the Romans: “He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.”

I’ve just returned from New York City, and last month on a Wednesday evening this lady came in from Baltimore. That’s quite a long journey, and she came to bring me good news.” She said, “A friend of mine, working in my office, last July” . . . now last month October… “last July, her purse disappeared, her pocketbook. She reported it to the office, they made a thorough search, and no trace of it.” She said, ‘All I had in it as far as money was concerned was $1.35, just lunch money. But I did have a lovely bracelet that I valued—not only to me, it was of great value sentimentally—but I also thought it had great value in a monetary sense, so I placed a double value on it. But I wanted the bracelet, not the $1.35 that was in my change purse. And not one little thing happened to retrieve this purse.’” This lady who came to my meetings told her of my work and told her what to do, and then she gave her a complete set of my books. And this is what the lady did. She imagined that she was wearing the bracelet, that’s all that she did. She imagined she was wearing the bracelet. If she wore the bracelet, well then, it wasn’t lost. And day after day she wore that bracelet.

This lady who came from Baltimore on Wednesday night to tell me the story could tell me the previous day, on Tuesday in October, the purse was found in this strange manner. The firemen were called in to give some estimate on structural changes because they suggested certain changes for safety. And then they brought the firemen in to make these so-called suggestions. One fireman simply took a certain ___(??) should come out, and as he did so, behind this thing that he pulled was the purse. The only thing missing was the little change purse of a dollar and thirty-five cents, and there was the bracelet.

If “By him all things are made and without him there is nothing made that is made,” well then, I can test it. If I test it and he proves himself in performance, I’ve found him. But, if all things are made by him and without him there’s nothing made that is made, doesn’t she know this night who Christ Jesus is? Who God is? She found the one who made it. But she may, in spite of this, tomorrow still reject it. That’s life. I can find him this night and then tomorrow, by the confusion of the world, reject him as not really the God who creates everything in my world. At least she’s proven in one instance from her own satisfaction she has found a causative power within her. She may not want to feel it is Christ Jesus, although scripture tells you it is, the Bible tells you it is, but churches tell you that it isn’t.

The churches want to lead us on the outside and point to some being hanging on a wall or to something in time and space 2,000 years removed from now, and call that Christ Jesus. And they have organized around a certain idea and mislead man. I don’t say they do it consciously and deliberately; they do it unwittingly. They don’t know Christ Jesus. They can dress themselves up in all the flowing garbs of the world and that does not mean that they’ve experienced Christ Jesus. For when they experience him then it’s so simple, it’s so easy, it is so wonderful.

And one day, you have all these marvelous experiences spoken of in scripture. I can’t tell anyone the thrill that is in store for you when you move up from this age into that age. A body already prepared for you, not of your own choosing, and certainly you did not earn it. The body prepared, completely prepared, but waiting for you to fill it. And you become molten light. As molten light you move up and fill this infinite garment, an immortal garment, already prepared for you. And you fill it in one marvelous circular motion.

This temple of yours will be struck like lightning, as told you in scripture: “Tell me, Master, what is the sign of your coming?” and he answered, “As lightning comes out of the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man!” (Matthew 24:3, 27) And it’s just like that. It’s a bolt of lightning right out of your own skull, and it splits you in two from top to bottom—the bottom being the base of your spine. It’s just the torso that is completely torn in two, and you see it separated by several inches. And at the base of what was your spine is molten golden liquid light. As you look at it, you can say with Blake, “I know it is my Self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer” (Jerusalem, Plate 96) I am one with the very thing that I contemplate, and then as it, in serpentine motion up you go into Zion. And you fill a garment prepared for you. That garment is unseen by mortal eye, because no mortal eye could behold the beauty of that garment. It is beyond the wildest dream of anything known to man. It’s not man as you understand man. Yes, a human face, human hands, human feet. But how could you describe the body that is yours now when you move up and take possession of it? And then you are in Zion.

So I say to everyone, it’s going to happen to you, to every being in this world. For you don’t earn it, it’s a gift; it’s given to us. And as he gives us the gift of himself, he gives us the garment already prepared for us. All will get it. And no two… he doesn’t tell the other what garment he is preparing for the other… but all will be molded as living stones into his living wonderful temple. It’s a living thing, not made of dead stones. The stone was converted into something alive, and suddenly the whole temple becomes alive, and you and I form the stones of that temple. You can’t describe the beauty of the body that forms.

So here, who is meditating me? I am meditating myself. God became me that I may become God, and in becoming me he passes me through all these furnaces of affliction. At the very end, then he draws me out, singly. He doesn’t draw me in a pair. I’m unique in the temple. I cannot be replaced in the temple. You cannot be replaced in the temple. So he draws us, as told us in the Book of Isaiah, the 27th chapter: “I will gather you one by one, O people of Israel” (verse 12). One by one… I don’t bring two. It’s unique; this temple is unique, only one can come at a time. The door is narrow and only one can get through. And God draws us “one by one, O people of Israel” into this temple that he’s building. It’s a heavenly structure, something altogether, well, you can’t describe it. Not a thing on earth could even be a shadow of it. That’s how unique you are, how perfect you are in his eyes.

So you don’t reject this night the stone that begot you. The stone that begot you is your own wonderful human Imagination. That is God. “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that is God himself.” (Blake) And if God makes all things, well, then test it. I will this night imagine that I am the man I would like to be, and although reason denies it, my senses deny it, and everything denies it, I will walk in that state just as though it were true. Like the lady wearing the bracelet. It was gone between July and October. She believed her friend who came to my meetings, who gave her the books. She read the books, she never met me in person, never saw me, only from the books. And she began to make a game of it and she wore her bracelet day after day. And then, seemingly out of the nowhere, there must be structural changes in the building. And the firemen come in and they say what they will allow and what they would disallow, and “this must go.” One fireman—why did he do it?—he takes some little thing and pulls it from the wall and says, “This must go. This is a fire trap.” As he does so, behind it here is a pocketbook, and in the pocketbook the one thing she wanted. And the only thing lost was the change, the $1.35. But the bracelet was there! Well, didn’t she find God?

Now many don’t believe that is God. Maybe you can’t quite feel that Imagination could be personified. May I tell you, I stood in the presence of God. He is just as described in the Book of Daniel, just as he’s described. And standing in the presence of the Ancient of Days, I answered in scripture, that’s all that I answered. He asked me the simplest thing in the world, which you may not know if you were asked that suddenly. But you don’t have to know, as told you in the Book of Luke: Don’t be concerned when you are brought into the Divine Council, brought in before the authors, or rather, the rulers of the synagogue (Luke 12:11, 12). For a synagogue is simply a place of assembly; it’s the assembly itself or those assembled. But they only read in synagogue, that’s all that they do. They don’t give sermons, it’s simply the reading of scripture that all may hear it, as told in Nehemiah, hear it with understanding. Read it so they understand you when you read it, the 8th chapter, the 8th verse. Read it so those who hear you understand what you say. And so, read it, that’s all that is read in synagogue, it’s simply the reading of scripture.

So when you’re told, “Bring your ___(??) into the synagogue before the rulers and the authorities of the day, do not be anxious how you will answer.” Well, if I’m to answer, something was asked me. I can’t answer unless something was asked of me. So, “Do not be anxious how you will answer or what you will say; because the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:12). So you are supremely and divinely prompted what you ought to say. That gives man freedom to disobey. That is the only place in the Bible I can find where a man could really disobey to the point of sinning against the Holy Spirit. Having been prompted what to say then not to say would be a sin against the Holy Spirit. Well, I can’t conceive of any being in the world being divinely prompted what he ought to say failing to confess his faith.

And so I was asked, “What is the greatest thing in the world?” and my automatic reply was, “Love.” I said, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is love.” With that the Ancient of Days embraced me and I became incorporated into his body, one with his body. I was the very being who embraced me. I have had no sensation from that day on of any separation or divorce from that union. It was a union that has been abiding since. And slowly he who embraced me is rising within me, instructing me as to all my visions that I had and recorded without understanding. Then understanding comes slowly as he rises within me. When he completes his rising fully within me, I am he. Then all the things foretold will be mine. And so they come week after week and month after month.

Well, just imagine going to bed, fully convinced of the reality of God having experienced it, and asking him as you would a person, “Why did you make this? What is the purpose of it all? Why?” Not doubting for one moment that he created it, I’m not asking him to define his act. How was it made, that isn’t my concern, but why? What is its purpose? And then from the depths of your soul one word comes in response to your inquiry, and that one word is “hatching,” just “hatching.” For hatching the whole thing was made. Then your mind goes back and you remember the words of Blake in his Gates of Paradise. Here he has an egg, and he breaks the egg in a drawing, and out of the egg comes a cherub, this thing you couldn’t see to be a cherub with the shell unbroken; you wouldn’t know what it contained. But within the egg it contained a cherub, a winged immortal creature. And then Blake drew an egg, broke the egg, and out of it comes a winged cherub. And the caption of that winged cherub is this: “At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell.” So, why did you make it? “For hatching” came back the answer. The only purpose of the whole vast universe is for hatching out sons of God.

But being a son in the process of becoming, we are invited to imitate him as dear children, and hatch out our dreams as he is hatching out his dream. His dream is to beget sons more numerous than the sands of the sea. All the sons, these are the Elohim that go to make the one God, the only God. So, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord”—that is one—“our Elohim”—that’s a plural word—“is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). It takes all of these completely awake to make Jehovah. All one. So here, the word came back, why did you make this? And the answer came “For hatching.” The only reason for the whole vast universe was for hatching out sons of God. As told us in the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans: “The whole creation groans waiting for the unveiling of the sons of God” (verse 19). Everything is waiting for that moment in time when the whole curtain is lifted and all the sons are born. And all are he, and altogether form God. So I tell you, I share with you that revelation: it’s only for hatching.

So tonight you can hatch out a dream. You want a home? Dwell in it, just as though you were in it. You want to dispose of one? Keep out of it mentally as though you had sold it. You want to get married, be happily married? Wear the ring as this lady wore the bracelet, and be as persistent in the wearing of it as she was in the wearing of the bracelet. Whatever you want, hatch it out! For the whole world is only for hatching. Everything in the world is hatched out by God. But don’t reject the God in you that is one with the God that brought the whole thing into being. Your human Imagination keyed low is still one with the God that brought the whole vast universe into being. And if he brought the whole vast universe into being for the hatching of his sons, keyed low as we are, we can hatch out ours, jobs, income, anything we want in this world. For it’s only for hatching.

This is not something manufactured; this is revelation. For when you hear a word, one word, from the depths of your soul, and it comes in response to your inquiry; don’t neglect it. Share it with everyone who will accept it, and it is only for hatching. So you can hatch out anything in this world, I don’t care what it is. Someone wants to be a president; he hatches it out. It doesn’t mean anything in the eyes of God. For in the end, when we awake as God, we inherit God. Then all the little things of earth will wear out like a garment and dissolve like smoke. So your human history will be as nothing.

It’s only your divine history that is already written for you in scripture; and all that is written in scripture you are going to experience in the depths of your soul. And if you can’t understand it the very day you experience it, wait, it will happen. I had mine in 1934. I didn’t understand it. I have had visions all through my life. I didn’t understand them but I recorded them. So these things are indelibly impressed upon the mind. It’s exactly what has happened, but then you didn’t understand it. And so, you go through life waiting, and finally the real series begins to unfold within you, and then understanding comes. And all the things that previously happened to you without understanding suddenly begin to unfold like a flower and you have the full meaning of it. You go back to your scripture and there it was. “Come to him”—to him? And then the very next line tells me that this one spoken of as a person is now a living stone? And you couldn’t understand it. And to see a stone, this inanimate sterile thing, broken, reshaped into a human form and that human form becomes living. Then you understand it. A living stone and the living stone is human. Then he calls you out of darkness into the marvelous light that is he. He brings you into his own light and you are one with him.

So here, tonight you test it. Take your dream this night that you want to realize in the not distant future. For man’s span is short in this little world of ours, three score and ten. You haven’t too many months or years to wait for the fulfillment of the dream. And this revelation is true: “Why did you make it, O God?” “For hatching.” Well now, be imitators of God as dear children. As we’re told in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in his fifth chapter, “Be imitators of God as dear children.” Well, if he brings it this way, by calling a thing that is not seen as though it were, and I must imitate him, well, then I will imitate him. I will dare to assume that which is not now seen, and then I will be faithful to my assumption as though it were true and bring it into being. For the world is for hatching. This is God’s wonderful nest that he made. It’s the nest and he’s hatching out.

So then, that wonderful picture of Blake’s; when you see it the next time, you will see it based on understanding. “At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell” and out comes this winged creature, the immortal you, out of the shell that you could not have seen the contents until the shell was broken. Who looking at a caterpillar could predict his future as a painted butterfly if you’ve never seen a butterfly and didn’t know the source of the butterfly? How could you look at it and see a painted butterfly? How can you look at man—as it was shown me so vividly and explained to me so clearly that man to the higher world is simply this carnivorous bowel, giving off the most offensive odor? And how could you now look at man seen from a higher level—as we would now look on the lower level and see a caterpillar, for that is all we are to the higher level—and see this cherub, see this God coming out of this carnivorous bowel? For that’s all that we are.

The night that it [the dove] descended upon me and smothered me in affection with kisses, and then this woman to my left explained to me what we were to the higher world. But she explained to me that he who came in the form of a dove came because he so loved me; and he demonstrated his love to me, and all over my face this dove smothered me in kisses. And she told me how we offend the higher world, for to them we are only a carnivorous bowel. But out of this carnivorous bowel, as told us in the Book of Daniel, how we were given the garment and the heart and mind of an animal, and then seven times must pass over us until the people know that the Most High rules (Daniel 5:21). Then something comes out. It’s a hatching out process. So we are just like the bowel, that ___(??) picture of the bowel than the caterpillar? And yet out of it comes the painted butterfly. So if we are to the higher world a carnivorous bowel, out of it comes God. He buried himself in us and then brings himself out completely awake, and we are he.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Q: If what I want to hatch appears as if it would cause unhappiness to someone else, do I have to worry about that?

A: Did you hear the question? If what I want in this world appears that it might cause unhappiness to another. Well, let me give you a personal experience, very personal. When I fell in love with the girl who now bears my name and is the mother of my daughter, I was terribly involved. I was married at the age of nineteen, separated at twenty but not divorced. In the meanwhile, I became a dancer and everyone who knew us as a dance team thought that if I ever got a divorce, or my wife got a divorce, surely my dancing partner and myself would get married. That was taken for granted by everyone who knew us. But here, I was now not only not divorced, I was already committed to someone else. Then I found the girl I wanted, who was not my first wife or my dancing partner. Well, if I married her, on the surface of things I would hurt my dancing partner, wouldn’t I? I didn’t want to hurt her. I’d rather die than hurt her. I just couldn’t hurt her. So I kept on postponing what I knew I should have done. I should have assumed that I hurt no one.

And so, one day I said to myself, I’m not applying this principle that I know so well. I’m trying to unravel it on this level and you can’t unravel it on this level. So I began to fall asleep in the assumption that there was a bed over there occupied by my second wife, not occupied by anyone else. She slept there. I slept in that assumption for one solid week. At the end of a week, my dancing partner said, “I’ve got to talk to you about something. It’s very important.” I said, What is it? She said, “You know it’s always been assumed that you and I would get married, but, really, you are like my brother, I couldn’t marry you. I am in love with Dr. so-and-so and we have been for quite a few years, but I didn’t have the courage to tell you. But now I can’t let it drift any longer, and so I must tell you that I could never marry you. You’re just like a brother of mine.” So I had been carrying that burden for the longest while and she had been carrying the burden; we didn’t tell each other, and she didn’t have the courage to tell me until I assumed that I was happily married to the girl who now bears my name.

So, you don’t hurt anyone if you really go beyond appearances to a higher level. I could not honestly or consciously hurt my dancing partner. I would rather have died than to have her hurt by marrying someone else. But I assumed she was not hurt. When I went to bed, I made it quite clear to myself that I am sleeping in the assumption that I am happily married, which I could not be at the expense of another. So, if I am happily married, she is not hurt. Then suddenly at the end of the week she comes forward and tells me that I am her brother and she doesn’t believe in incest. So that’s the picture.

So I hope I’ve answered you. You don’t hurt anyone if you go above this level into the real level of your wonderful Imagination and see things as they ought to be through the eyes of love. So every time that you exercise your Imagination lovingly, you’re doing the right thing. No matter what you do, you’re doing the right thing. But on this level we wrestle with ourselves trying to unravel and you can’t unravel it here. This is a shadow world. As he said earlier when he saw this figure of himself meditating him, he knew the central jet of truth was: It was trying to tell him to reverse his belief of causation: causation isn’t here, causation is there. So, revise the level of causation and he has causation ___(??) a shadow in this world that the world calls reality. Is that clear? Thank you, Bill.

Q: What is the correct definition of Selah.

A: Selah, in all the Psalms? It’s just simply a pause and a conjunction. When you read a psalm at the end of it is Selah. Then it means that that reader of the psalm he broke it to be joined to the next. In other words, in the original manuscript there is no punctuation mark between even words or paragraphs. There are no verses, no chapters, simply a string of consonants, not even in the original manuscripts, vowels. And so man had to simply break them down in to what he would consider a word, a verse, a sentence and so on. And so, we broke them into chapters. But Selah means simply “joined to the next to give meaning to the two.” It’s not really an ending, it’s simply move forward and read the next psalm with it, because this is an arbitrary break of the original manuscript. And this break didn’t take place until the fifteenth century. So the scholars in the fifteenth century worked upon the scripts and tried to give it some kind of meaning for us.

Even to this day, you take this one statement when he said, “Behold, I say unto you today, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” Suppose I changed the comma, “Behold I say unto you, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” All the difference in the world. But the comma was placed after “today.” And yet, in the script he was made to say, “Do not touch me, I am not yet ascended in Paradise.” And yet, the world today puts the comma after “today”: “Behold, I say unto you today, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” “Behold, I say unto you, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” All the difference in the world.

So that’s punctuation, and these are all, well, scholars did a marvelous job. You can’t condemn them. We are heirs to their great work and they did a fantastic job on these scripts. I have many scripts at home and no two really agree. But they always give me something, every one. I like Moffatt’s, not for the entire book but for the poetry that the regular translation has lost. Moffatt’s tries to catch the poetry of it, and to me I just love the poetry. They are closer to the divine inspiration.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Did you hear the question? Well, first of all, I find that the lighter one treats it the best. First of all, if I assume that it’s done and make no effort to make it so, I am living by faith. By faith all things were made, as we’re told in Hebrews 11, it is by faith. So if I really believe the thing is done because I’ve imagined it done, believe in the reality of my imaginal act, well then, the lighter I treat it the better. If I make a problem of it, it’s the lack of faith. I’m almost confessing the absence of faith. But to treat it lightly, in confidence, then it will. But if I make it a problem, well then, I make it a difficult thing.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Yes, it’s all hatching, everything is for hatching, everything in the world. To me I think it’s a profound revelation. One word comes back, not a long sentence, “hatching.” And then my mind rushes to the quote of Blake, and here is this angelic being coming through an egg, and he uses the caption, “At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell.” Now Blake saw it clearly, but having this artistry that was Blake he could draw it and present it. And having this wonderful spiritual ___(??), he also captured it. But when you only hear it ___(??) only describe it verbally. But he could describe it in drawing, in painting, in poetry, in everything. But here is that one little thing… and the egg is broken ___(??) the cherub, and he uses the word “hatching” And out of the depths of the soul comes the one word “hatching.” That’s why he made the whole vast world: only for hatching.

And tonight, you have an idea; that is to you like an egg. And so, warm it by simply accepting it and let it hatch. Because it contains within itself all the necessary power to express itself. It takes your acceptance of the fact that it does and it hatches.

Until Tuesday. Thank you.