I Am Called by Thy Name, O Lord

Tonight’s title is taken from the Book of Jeremiah. It’s the 15th chapter, the 16th verse: “Thy words were found, and I ate them, and thy words became to me the joy and delight of my heart;”—and then he tells the results of eating these words—“for I am called by thy name, O Lord, God of hosts.” He found the words, he ate them, assimilated them, and then it produced this knowledge that he who ate them, who assimilated them, is actually the very being that is the cause of all the phenomena of life. The whole vast universe was himself pushed out, that everything was created by him, and he didn’t know it until he found the words. Then he ate them, and having eaten them he assimilated them. And that’s what you and I are called upon to do. We take food in, and we assimilate what we can build into our system, and then we reject what we cannot use.

Well, the Bible is the same way. We have taken the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction, and we have mistakenly taken personifications for persons, and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended. And so, like food, you take it in; and then the system discriminates between what it can use, what it can assimilate and build into its system, and what it must expel, what it must reject. And we read, so we’re told, And they read from the law and they read it clearly. This is the Book of Nehemiah, 8th chapter, 8th verse: And they read it clearly; so that they heard it with understanding. When they heard it with understanding, well, then they could discriminate and reject the instrument that conveyed it, and then accept what it conveyed, the kernel, the life essence of it as it were.

So tonight, our story is “I am called by thy name.” Now what is the name? Well, we are told the name of the strong tower, and the righteous man runs into it and is safe. I will respond, I will answer all who call me by my name. He will answer everyone who calls by his name. Well, now how will I call this night? Because I’m also told, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it,” anything that you ask in my name I’ll do it. That you’ll find in the 14th chapter of the gospel of John (verse 13): “Whatever you ask in my name, I’ll do it”…but find out the name. Well, now there are millions this night asking in certain names and they’re not getting any response, so it may not be the name. What is the name? Either then the promise is a lie, or they haven’t the right name.

Now, in the Bible, a name, whether of a man, an angel, deity, regardless of what it represents in scripture, it simply in some wonderful way reveals the character of its bearer. So if Moses who claims that he had a revelation of the name of God is going to impress the elders with what he claims that he heard and what he saw, he has to know the name. And so, he said, this is my revelation, it came to me in this form: “I AM has sent you”…When I go to the people of Israel and they insist on a name, what shall I tell them? “Just say I AM that I AM. And when you go say I AM has sent you,” that’s all. Now, is that the name? I tell you it is the name as told us in the 3rd chapter of Exodus. It’s not only my name, it’s my name forever, my name for all generations, forever and forever…just I AM (verses 13-15).

Well, how do I call upon I AM? If the God I worship has the name I AM, then it seems to me that only through what I am can I worship him aright. So how can I call this night on the name? So you can call me Neville and I respond. If I walk down the street and I hear the name John I don’t turn around. If I hear the name Neville, I will stop and respond because that’s my name; for I am told, if he calls upon my name I will answer him. If he doesn’t call on my name, I can’t respond. I can only respond to my name. Well, how then will I call upon God’s name? His name is I AM. Well, I put it to the test. And I tried unnumbered ways, putting it to the test. The name is I AM, that’s what we’re told. In scripture the word is Jehovah; in the New Testament that same I-am-ness is spelled Jesus. But the word Jesus doesn’t respond, the word Jehovah doesn’t respond; I AM does respond. But how does it respond?

Here comes this day a letter to me (he’s here tonight) he said, “I’m from the Midwest. My mother and brother have had nothing but physical problems, I mean, health problems. He came out of the 2nd World War emotionally disturbed and he’s been in and out of the Veterans’ hospital, well, constantly, really. He’s always taking these psychological treatments. For four years I made a little plan, I called it my mailing program, and I mailed them what I called metaphysical literature for four years, hoping that they would read it and would have a change of attitude towards life and bring about a change in themselves. For the medical world seemed not to help; they got no help from the medical world. So I thought, well now I’ll get this and call it my program, my plot. Well, at the end of four years I heard you, and then I stopped it, I stopped sending them books, which I didn’t realize until only two weeks ago that they never even read one of the books. As they came they threw them into the ashcan. But I didn’t know that until two weeks ago when a neighbor of my mother from the Midwest came paying a visit to the West Coast, and she told me as the mail arrived, books right straight to the ashcan. So they never once read a book…in keeping with what Ben Franklin said about books that were given. He said that people seldom read a book that is given to them, and the best way to spread a thought is to charge a modest price for it. Don’t give a book; charge a modest price for it and because they’ve invested they read.” But this was not an investment on their part. The son sent these books week after week in the hope that in some strange way the mother would read them, the brother would read them, and bring about in themselves a change of attitude towards society, which they didn’t.

So he said, “What I did was this. I couldn’t reach them by sending them gifts of books, and having heard you, that the whole thing is myself—-didn’t have to depend upon my mother reading a book or my brother reading a book—I could do it. So I assumed full responsibility now to produce a change in them, though we are hundreds of miles away, no physical contact save by letter. I took a letter in my hand, a mental letter in my mental hand, and I could actually see—he used the word “actual”—I could actually see my brother’s hand writing and then I read what I wanted to read when I opened that letter, that ‘I am feeling much better and Mother is much better than she has been.’ I read it over and over in his handwriting. On the morning of the 24th of February, last month, I received a letter dated the 22nd from my brother, word for word.” Because he actually told me what he said, and then he quoted from his brother’s letter, not one word, not a comma was out of place”…that this letter is coming across space, saying to his brother here. He said, “May I tell you, Neville, not in ten years have I had anything but a negative letter from my mother and my brother, not once concerning their health condition but a negative state. And here in three weeks…I did it for three weeks, every day, and quite often several times in the course of the day. When I thought of it I simply repeated it. At the end of three weeks this letter came, and the following day, one from my mother. This is what she said, ‘I have not felt better in fifteen years’—from the two that were simply hypochondriacs.”

He said, “I know now imagining does create reality. I don’t have to spend my money sending them books to get them to read it. All I need is the desire on my part to help them, and then it becomes my responsibility. And so, I simply went to the end. The end was a letter in my hand where I could actually see my brother’s handwriting and then read the contents of that letter as I wanted to read it. So I actually wrote the letter that I read three weeks later. It was written in my brother’s handwriting but I dictated that letter. The whole thing was all within me. So I know today I can support this claim: imagining does create reality.” So that’s the name. “Call upon my name.” Who was doing it? And I said to him…he said, “Well, I am.” And he would have told me, but he said, “I told no one. I kept it as my secret, I never confided to anyone. I just said I am hearing from my brother.”

So he was calling on the name, the only name in this world that responds. The name Jesus?—-yes, it’s the most glorious name in the world, but only when you know the name, what it means. Jesus actually means “I am” if you know how to spell it. It’s spelled Yod He Vau Shin Ayin—-Joshua—you break it down Yod He Vau Shin Ayin. There’s a definite reason for the Shin in the name. A Shin is a flame, a fire, and an Ayin is an eye. And so Yod He Vau He would be Jehovah. But the name in an active state, which is called Jesus, is “God in action”…same thing. Do you believe in Jesus? “What do you think of Jesus?” someone asked Blake and he said, “Jesus? Why he’s the only God, but so am I and so are you.”

If I tell you this night that you are Jesus, would you be embarrassed? Are you going to bend your head in shame or think that I am blaspheming the name of God? I mean it when I tell you that you are Jesus. You don’t know it yet but you are Jesus…that God actually became man that man may become God. The day will come—-I hope it’s tonight—-but it’s coming to every child born of woman; then they will know who they are. And in the very end—because the story of Jesus is all about The End, hasn’t a thing to do with your social world, anything here at all—it’s all about The End. Eschatology is the only story of Jesus. So he comes only to fulfill scripture: The End. And what was that End? That God so loved man that he actually gave himself—-for he and the son are one—-he actually gave himself to man because of his love of man. He became man and lost himself in man. But when he actually gave himself to man, bear in mind God was father, so if someone who is a father gives himself to me, but completely gives himself to me, well, then I must be a father. Regardless of my sex, regardless of my position in this world, if he succeeds in his purpose of giving himself to me, and he who gave himself to me was a father, then I must be a father.

He has it all planned out, how to reveal to me that he gave himself to me. And so he reveals it in his Son. There’s no way in the world that God can prove to me that he gave himself to me save he has a Son that is his only begotten son. Then that only begotten son, in the depths of my soul I see him; and I know he is my Son, and he calls me Father. I know he is my son and he knows I’m his father. There’s no way in eternity that God the Father could ever give himself to man and convince man to whom he gave himself that he succeeded in his purpose of that giving of self to man unless the son reveals the gift. So out of the depths of the soul of man comes the son, and the son is David. So a riddle is asked in the Book of Proverbs, the 30th chapter of the Book of Proverbs: “Who has established the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!” (verse 4). So we’re told we know. Well, where is he? In the depths of man is the son. He’s called Olam in scripture and Olam means “the eternal youth, the eternal lad, the eternal son” (Eccles. 3:11). The question is constantly asked, Where…who is he and who is that son? “Whose son are you, young man?” Whose son is that stripling, whose son? (1 Sam. 17:56). And then no one knows. No one will know until he appears in the depths of the soul of the individual to whom God now reveals his purpose: You see the son and the son calls you Father.

So what is his fabulous name? The name is I AM—-for purposes here on earth it’s I AM—-but in the end you will know the meaning of these words, and all will become king. Who? “The Lord will become king over all of the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one” (Zech. 14:9). So you and the other three billion or four billion of us in this world will one day have the satisfaction of knowing that God fulfilled his purpose in you. You will see God’s only begotten son and he’ll call you Father (Ps. 2:7). Well, he’s already called me Father. So if he calls me Father and he calls you Father, then you and I are one. Without loss of identity we’re the father of the same son. Then we understand the great mystery of this compound unity where “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deut. 6:4). The I AM our I AMs form one I AM.

So the whole vast world, all are aware of being. So if I’m aware of being, I say “I am”…and you are aware of being so you say “I am.” But you think you differ from me because I respond to Neville and you respond to John or some other name. But gradually we’re moving towards one name, for “in that day the Lord will be one and his name one.” So I’ll tell you that name: In that day, your name is Jesus—-self-born, born out of your own wonderful being, brought forth, and you’re Jesus. Because Jesus is the Father of the only begotten son of God, “When you see me you see the Father.” “How can you say, Show me the Father? When you see me you see the Father” (John 14:9). And so, did not David call me Lord? said he. “If David in the Spirit calls me Lord, how can I be David’s son?” (Mat. 22:42). Well, David called me Lord, called me Adonay; he called me “my Father.” So if he called me Father, how can I be David’s son? And so he reveals himself as the Father…“for he who sees me sees the Father.” Everyone will have the experience of being called by David, Father, and then you know who you are.

So I say Jesus…you are Jesus, but you haven’t yet remembered. He said, this is my name forever, not only forever but that all generations…thus all generations shall remember me by that name. And that name when you come right down to it as a sound, it’s Jesus. In a practical sense it’s I AM. I am writing a letter. What letter? I’m not going to tell you now. I’m writing a letter, it’s coming from my brother. I’m writing another letter, it’s coming from my mother. And they’re telling what they haven’t told me in ten years, because they’re always complaining about how horrible they feel. But now I’m going to make them tell me they never felt better. And so, my mother’s going to write me a letter. Here’s the letter in my hand and she’s telling me she hasn’t been better. And I thought ten years…she changed the script somewhat because she told me fifteen years, but my memory went back ten years. I can’t recall when she wasn’t complaining, and so I thought ten years was long enough. She tells me by her own letter fifteen years. My brother tells me he has never felt better, that everything is perfect, and I haven’t received a letter of that nature in ten years from my home in the Midwest. And to discover through the grapevine…a lady comes west, or someone comes west, who just saw them and said that every time when the mail came bringing your gift of a book, right straight to the ashcan…didn’t even open the book…right into the ashcan.

Well, I have those, too. I must confess I do the same thing with a few things. I have some Jehovah’s Witnesses who are determined to convert me; and I get all kinds of letters from my ex-wife—-she sends me these magazines from something. Well, I look at it, I thank her profusely, then tear it in half and into the ashcan. I do the same thing there, too. So I must confess in this way I have acted in the same strange manner. I have no time to read it; it’s called The Watchtower or something. But I’m not on that kind of watchtower. This is a different kind of watchtower that I’m talking about here, where there’s only God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s God.

Tonight you can test it, as this gentleman has tested it. As every story I tell from this platform bears witness to the fact that imagining creates reality. There is no other God. God actually became man. And the end is in God’s control. No tyrant is going to change it. If the bombs began to fall now, they aren’t going to change the outcome. God planned it as it is and as it will be consummated, and no power in the world is going to change it. So the whole vast world is responding to the activity taking place in us. And much of it is confusion because we don’t know the name of God. So we go to church, we light candles, we do all kinds of things, and call upon a name; that isn’t going to help at all. You could be right in a bar, if you’re ever up against the sixth glass and not quite sure what you’re seeing, and carrying on an inward conversation with self from premises of fulfilled desire—and in a way that no one knows it will come to pass. Hasn’t a thing to do with your outer behavior, your activities, what are you doing on the inside?

So we are warned time and time again. You’ve heard it said…well, I’ll tell it, said he, if you look on anything lustfully you’ve committed the act (Mat. 5:28). For that very act of feeling was the act. Whether you restrain the impulse following that ___(??) makes no difference, you did it. In the very moment of contemplating a thing with pleasure you were doing it. Well, you contemplate the receipt of a letter with pleasure. I received the letter and oh, what wonderful news! Contemplated with pleasure…that’s lusting. Not just a physical lust after a woman or a woman after a man, but to lust after the receipt of a letter with contents bearing witness to the fact that this imagining creates reality. And then wait for it, it will come. His took three weeks. What is a matter of three weeks? Three months? May it come in three seconds! It could come…I’ve had it happen while I was in the act of doing it. I’ve had the phone ring to disturb my meditation and I hadn’t even completed it. I was doing it and hearing it vividly when the phone rang, and I’m answering the phone to hear confirmation of what I’m doing on the inside.

All depends on where you are, on what level, because there’s no difference between divine imagining and human imagining save in the degree of intensity. So if I withdrew long enough or deeply enough, then I’m more intense. And so, if I really withdraw, if I shut out the entire world, and then I start going into the depths of myself to hear something, then I’m more intense (so the phone rang). But if I don’t, I’m disturbed by the noise and I’m concerned about other things, well, then I’m not withdrawing enough. It still works, but then it takes a little longer time. Like putting on a little single light under the pot, it will boil eventually, but you could increase the flame and boil it quicker. And so, the whole thing is within us.

So when the Bible speaks of God, they’re speaking of Jesus and they’re speaking of your Imagination. When Blake speaks, say for instance, of the great Poetic Genius, to him God was the Poetic Genius. And you say, “Well, I’m not a poet.” You aren’t? Have you ever had a dream? Do you know any poem in this world comparable in structure to a dream? Think of anything in this world…take a Shakespeare, the world’s greatest in the use of words, or take a Blake, do you think anything that Shakespeare every wrote could compare to your dream? You take a dream and the structure of the dream, everything falls out and in perfect order, and the conversations are in perfect order, not one word misplaced, and every character speaking just as they should speak, and the whole thing is unfolding, and you’re doing it, aren’t you a poet? There isn’t a poem in this world that can compare to a dream. And the whole dream unfolds so vividly before the mind’s eye. You also are not only the author of the dream, you also throw yourself into the character, you are part of the dream too. It may be the major character, it may be a minor that you are playing, but you wrote it, wrote the whole thing. You dramatize it and externalize it, and actually, well, you directed it. The whole thing took place in you.

So when Blake speaks of the Poetic Genius as Divine Imagining and he calls Divine Imagining, Jesus, well, can’t you imagine? That’s Jesus. But if you think for one second that’s being blasphemous, no, it’s not blasphemous. You dwell upon it. Tonight you dwell upon it. You sit there and think noble things about others and expect it to come back to you just as you’ve imagined. That’s Jesus doing it. And don’t be ashamed of it, for the day will come, you will not be called, possibly, Jesus, but you will be called Father by the very one who called him Father. Then you’ll know who you are. If he calls you Father and he called him Father, are you not Father? Well, who did he call Father? He called the grand I-am-ness Father.

So I say to you, eat the words. He said, “I found your words and I ate them”—-I assimilated them. I expelled all the things I couldn’t take in, like the instrument that conveyed the story. So, alright, I will take that, I’ll take the kernel and discard the husk. And then they became to me, “Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.” Why? What did they produce in me? What, as I assimilated them, what did they build? They built this knowledge that “I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” You mean when I read the Bible and actually assimilated it I discovered the whole book was about me? Yes! I discovered the whole book was about me. That he who brought me into being as it were as his emanation so loved me that he cleaved to me and wouldn’t let me go until he actually fulfilled his purpose to give me himself. And he, being God the Father, and I being his wife, his emanation, that he cleaved to me and wouldn’t let me go until I actually became one with him. When that was completed, that union had to result in a child, for this is male-female. God the Father, as we’re told in the 54th chapter of the Book of Isaiah: “Your Maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name” (verse 5). And so, my Maker is my husband, I’m his emanation, and he cleaved to me until this dream of life comes to an end. It’s called death…until this death disappears…then I am he. Well, this union must result in something creative and that is a son. So he brings into my world his son, but by then I am he, and so the son calls me Father.

I am telling you what I know from experience. I’m not speculating, I’m not theorizing, these are not opinions. I never heard it from a man. I was never taught it. It came by the revelation of Jesus Christ. When I least expected it, it happened to me, and it happened in such a marvelous manner. I can say to everyone: Do not despair. I don’t care what you have ever done, the love of God is so intense and so great he isn’t going to leave you. He has made a pledge to cleave to you and he is not going to let go until he has transformed you into himself, and you are he. And so when it is done, you will have to confess that it’s grace, it’s a gift. You could not have earned it. No man in the world could earn it; he isn’t good enough. Therefore, because he can’t earn it he can’t brag about it; it’s simply a gift, the gift of God. Grace is simply God’s gift of himself to man. When he succeeds in giving me grace, then he gives me himself; and so when he gives me himself he has to give me his son. He can’t be a father, giving me himself, and leave me barren. He has to give me his son or he didn’t give me himself. If he is a father, then he has to give me fatherhood. If he is God, he has to give me God-ship. He has to or he didn’t complete his purpose. So whatever he is when he pledges himself to do something, then I must be it. If his pledge was to give me all that he is, whatever he was before, I must become.

And so, the fatherhood I am, and if that name, that holy name is Jesus. Well, you may laugh or may walk out of here never to return again, it makes no difference to me. I am he. I’m the same man, Neville, but I am he, as you are he. You don’t know it and I know it. I know not because I earned it; I know it because it was given to me. I didn’t earn it, no man can earn it, it’s a gift, and because it’s a gift everyone will get it. So don’t be embarrassed. When you see him, infinite love stands before you. And in the end there is only one body, strangely enough. You are embraced and incorporated into the body of love and it’s your body. It’s infinite, not in space, it’s human, very human, but it’s all love; infinite in wisdom, infinite in power, infinite in every sense of the word and it’s your body, never again to be divorced from it. For that body is cleaving to you until you fuse into it, completely incorporated into the body of God, and that body is Jesus. Because you’re one with the body you are he—-not a little portion of it, the whole, the fullness is in you.

But here, for our practical purposes, I want letters after letters. I want you to take it this night and just try it…just what the gentleman did. He tried the outside affect, we all do that first, and so he tried to reach them by gifts of books, and they didn’t even read the books. Four years of spending time and money and they all went into the ashcan. Then he stopped after he came here—-he hasn’t been coming here too long—-but he heard what you heard, and then he decided that the whole responsibility was his. He isn’t going to blame his mother, he isn’t going to blame his brother, he isn’t going to blame anyone, and he isn’t going to try to change them through physical, external means. He’s going to change them because they are all himself pushed out. He assumed full responsibility for the world in which he lived. So if the whole vast world is myself pushed out, I’ll change any aspect. For did not James say, the greatest revolution in this century was the discovery by man that by changing his own inner attitudes of mind he could change the outer aspects of life? So he didn’t argue with others, he only changed the inner attitudes of his own mind. And so he did it by holding a letter, which he was reading, as having come from his brother and having come from his mother; and that letter came at the end of three weeks. A complete radical change of attitude on their part because there was first a change of attitude on his part. He didn’t expect the same kind of letter that he did for ten years. He radically changed it and expected the response. If this world is only response and I am the cause of the response, well, then get about the business and do something about it. We are the operant power. It can’t operate itself, we are the operant power. And so, if my whole vast world is my Imagination made visible, that “all that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my own wonderful human Imagination,” and that this world that seems so objectively real and so completely independent of my perception of it is only reflecting the activities taking place in me, well, then do something about it.

So I’m asking everyone to do something about it and then write me. Tell me what happened, how you did it, as this gentleman did. It only took him two pages—-not on both sides of the sheet—-one page would have done it.In just two simple pages in longhand he told me the story I told you tonight. And now I say to him, not a thing in this world can stop you but you. You’re in business, go to the top. Go to the end—hold the end in your own mind’s eye. Hold it in your hand if there’s something you can hold in your hand implying the fulfillment of your dream; hold it in your hand as you did the letter. If it’s a contract, hold a contract. If it’s a bank book with a certain statement, hold it…if it’s the morning’s paper bringing you the news you want. Do you think that’s crazy? You can do it. Tomorrow’s news can be determined by your own wonderful…it’s done anyway by your wonderful human Imagination. In spite of all the conflicts of the world, try it. Don’t say, “Well, now suppose he operates differently.” You’ll give him power that doesn’t belong to anyone in this world save he. The story is: I am he. Where is he? I am he. So don’t think he can do it because I am he. He will only reflect what you are doing.

So you are the whole thing. It seems an awful responsibility…but it’s true. And in the end, you are the very being that became you. He became you in love, he will raise you in love, and you will discover that you are the being that did the whole vast world. So you try it. But above all, please share with me that I in turn may share with others your wonderful use of faith. The first thing to do with faith is to begin to live by it. The very first thing, just begin to live by it. And it’s faith in his name, and his name is I AM. If you take a concordance and look up the word “name,” it’s the most exciting search in the world through the sixty-six books, the name “name,” and see where it goes, and how he leads you to only one point: confidence in I AM. Not in some other being—no intermediary between yourself and God—because Jesus, you think, is the intermediary. No, Jesus is your own wonderful I AM…that’s Jesus, that’s God. He is God. He’s God the Father, and he became man that man may become God. So he’s dwelling in man.

This coming fortnight we’re going to have all over the Christian world stories of his resurrection, stories of his crucifixion, and the same thing’s going to happen this year that has happened in previous years—the story will not be properly told. It isn’t ___(??). This is the great mystery of life through death. He gave himself to me, completely gave himself to me, and had to die like the little seed must die to be made alive. He died in me; he’s buried in me in the tomb, the only tomb into which he was ever placed, my skull. When he awoke in my skull I was he, the same being, I was he. And so, the only place where he’s ever buried is the skull. And when he comes out, all of the things told you of him you are going to experience, everything said of him you are going to experience. And the whole thing is only The End, the last days. That’s all he’s come to reveal, because all prior to that was preparation. He’s only concerned with the eschatological concept of life: The very last days when he awakens in man.

So tonight, let me quote it in a simple, simple way. You sit quietly and now forget what you even did one second before. You may be ashamed of what you did; God isn’t. You’ve been made to feel that you did wrong, or maybe you did wrong in your own mind’s eye. But don’t think for one moment because you did something that you thought wrong or society may judge you harshly for, that you are not now worthy to call on his name if you know his name; his name is I AM. The night before you could have been plastered, the night before you could have done a thousand things of which you may be ashamed. It doesn’t stop you from getting the response from God if you call on his name. So you sit quietly, close your eyes (just to aid your attention), and then construct a simple—the simpler the better—the simplest little scene which implies the fulfillment of the dream. The holding of a piece of paper in your hand from a certain character, and that’s what you want, and it reads as you want it, well, that’s it. You want to take the hand of a friend, congratulate the friend on his good fortune, that’s it. You want to see the ring on a finger of some friend who is anxious to be happily married in this world, that’s it. Whatever is the end implying the fulfillment of the dream. And all you do, you do it naturally and simply; as you do it naturally, give it tones of reality, sensory vividness; and then open your eyes. Then hold God trustworthy!

God is your own I AM. Who did it? I did it, I was doing it, well, you’re saying “I am, I am doing it”…that’s God. Now hold God trustworthy. He’s infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and so we can do it. This conscious reasoning mind can’t do it; that was suspended when you actually called upon the name of God. You come back and you wear this conscious reasoning mind, alright, wear it, it’s a good mind, nothing wrong with reason. But you try this. If you get results—and you will—then it doesn’t really matter what others think, does it? For if we have evidence for a thing, does it really matter what the world thinks about it? If I can produce results by a way that seems insane and seems crazy, it doesn’t matter if it seems insane if I get the results.

So I am called by thy name, and your name is my name, and the name is I AM. Not some little thing on the outside; there’s nothing more central than I AM. If this very night I slept any place in the world…,and by using my Imagination I could sleep wherever I wanted to sleep in Imagination, couldn’t I? Would it work? Yes it will work. I’ve done it. You ___(??) awakened there. How could I go there in the flesh? You will go there in the flesh. Things will happen to compel a change in your world, to compel you to make that journey if you sleep in Imagination elsewhere as though elsewhere were here; because I AM can never be other than here. I don’t say I am there; wherever I am, it’s here. And so, it is always first person and present…right here. So I can make here Moscow if I so desired. Then this would vanish and I would actually feel it to be Moscow here. Who is feeling it?—I am. That’s God, and all things are possible to God. Then, in a way that Neville, the conscious reasoning mind, does not know, he’ll be compelled to make the journey to fulfill that command of God.

So do it in this light and you will not fail. And you’ll send me letters, because I do really want the letters to encourage everyone here that this thing works. It proves itself in performance.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: (inaudible)

A: The question is…first of all, this is a story told last Friday. A gentleman who is a professional writer writes the story of a friend of his today by the name of Eddie. He’s extremely fond of Eddie. He met Eddie seemingly by accident two years ago, to discover suddenly last Sunday morning, while in the shower, as he personally recalled an experience of his six years ago when a story was dictated to him in a similar manner, the story that he had that very week dictated; he felt the presence behind dictating, prompting. And then, the whole thing flashed into his mind: Why that central character of the story of six years ago is identical with Eddie of flesh and blood. Here, this character of fiction is now wearing flesh and blood. So he reread the story in my book The Law and The Promise, called “There is no Fiction” (that chapter). So he discovered that all of the characters that he as a writer created over the years actually are walking around this world in flesh and blood. He hasn’t met all as yet, but, said he, “There are many that I have written that I have no desire to meet in the immediate present. Not in the flesh, anyway!” Well, it doesn’t really matter; we’ve all done it, anyway. Without being a professional writer we are having these characters.

For instance, I know a man in New York City, he didn’t know Mr. Roosevelt, didn’t know him at all, but he delighted…every morning when he shaved, he would spend, say, ten minutes shaving that face of his, a young man, thirty, and I said, “What on earth prompts you to do a thing like this?” He said, “You have no idea, Neville, what a joy I get out of it! There’s no show on Broadway that could give me the kick that I get when I look into that mirror and tell Roosevelt off. I’m looking in the mirror and I’m telling him what I think of him. I say, ‘Who do you think you are, king? This is America, a democracy. We don’t have any kings. So you want four years in the White House? And your four sons are they going to be all princes now? Are we going to have this royalty?’” I said, “What are you doing this for?” He said, “Oh, but Neville, what a joy, what a kick I get!” I said, “After all, you’re building a character.” Now, he doesn’t write. This man hasn’t written, but he was carrying on a mental conversation with something that he despised. Well, Mr. Roosevelt is gone from this world; never met the man, the man never met him; but he will meet a character that will make Roosevelt look like a bunch of roses to him. I mean these are the things we do in this world.

And so, you single out…here, this is the year of politics, and so you are either for or against, this year. All the things we are for…and then you are going to take the other fella in your mind’s eye and you’re going to tell him off. You’re going to carry on these mental conversations with him and say everything that is unlovely. You’re going to spend the most time on the one you don’t like and little time on the one you like. Man should be for, not against. The morning’s paper, you can tell the editorial policy of a paper by the things they’re against. They’ll tell you exactly who they’re going to vote for. Read the columnist in any paper and you see the policy that will capture that paper. They’re against; they’re not for. But you be for in this world. You single out what you want; let them go their way. Vote, yes, certainly vote. Vote for someone—don’t vote against someone—and vote for him, if you want to vote, and you should. I think you should if you want to vote, vote for someone. But don’t waste your precious time in carrying on these mental conversations with the opposition; you’re only enlarging them and building characters in your world that you must tomorrow encounter.

But, may I tell you, in the end, all will be forgiven, in the end all is forgiven…all. You could make lame people in this world, blind people, all kinds of people. In the end, you will confront them and in the twinkle of an eye all will be made perfect. Every one of them will be transformed into the beauty that they should have been in the beginning, that you disfigured them by your arguments and all of the things that you did. But in the end, you will confront them, an infinite sea of human imperfection. As you walk by—because in that moment you have been lifted up, and the heavenly chorus sang out your praise and called you by name, that you are risen—-and as you walk by, gliding by in this glorious body, this immortal body of yours made of fire and air it seems, and as you walk by everyone is molded into perfection because you are perfect. Then you understand the words: “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” And as you walk by, every one is made whole. So in the end all is perfect. But while we are struggling to awaken to the realization that our own Imagination is God, we create such strange, monstrous things.

So to come back to your question, “What should he do?” Were I he, I would do nothing. He wrote them; they sold. He’ll be called upon tomorrow…he doesn’t have to conceive all the stories. Maybe when he goes to the conference, I don’t know, I’m not a writer, so when he goes into conference and they say I want a story and this is the plot, as a professional writer he has to take the suggestion of the producer, whoever is responsible, and he has to conceive and put it into these things. Like Shakespeare gave us these fantastic things…but what characters! Were I Shakespeare walking this earth, I wouldn’t undo one thing that he’s done; they’re so altogether marvelous, every character. In fact, we speak of Shakespeare’s four hundredth anniversary, and I think of the great ones. You take a Dickens…do you know that his characters are better known than Dickens? They’re all alive, and don’t you meet them? Haven’t you met Scrooge? Who hasn’t met a Scrooge in this world? He’s far more alive than Dickens. Dickens as a character…maybe he wasn’t pleasant, I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t want to have a dinner party with him…but I enjoy his characters. I wouldn’t mind having them to dinner, quite a few of them, not all. And so these characters are alive and they’re all people in the world. You meet them. And one can play so many parts. You could be the most protective, loving husband in this world, and in the office you’re a devil. And yet at home you could be to her all that she desires as a husband. So we’re all characters ___(??) anyway. You hear them all day long, they’re doing ___(??).

Are there any other questions, please?

Q: (inaudible)

A: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will lift up all men unto me.” And that’s an actual true story. The day will come you’ll be lifted up, and I’ll tell you exactly how you will be lifted up: in a spiral motion. You’ll go up like this…and you don’t even know, you simply are taken up that way through the top of your head in spiral motion. A heavenly chorus will sing your praise as you are lifted up, call you by name, and pronounce “He is risen!” calling you by name. And the chorus will sing it out, unnumbered voices, but what heavenly voices! Then you will see an infinite field of human imperfection and they’re all waiting for you. Not just idly waiting, they’re waiting for you because you are going to redeem them. You will glide by in this immortal body of yours, a fiery, airy body. It’s luminous—you don’t need a sun, you don’t need the moon, you illuminate your world because you are the light. As you walk by, gliding by, every one is made perfect as you go by. That chorus comes in at the very end and it swells in the most glorious exultation: “It is finished!” the last words of the cross. And when it exults “It is finished!” then you crystallize once more in the body of clay for unfinished business, which unfinished business is to tell it—-to tell and testify to the truth of Jesus Christ, the only reality in the world.

But the churches have completely misunderstood the mystery of Jesus Christ, and talk about him as a being of flesh and blood. What a man in whom it first appeared did for a job on earth is irrelevant—that he was a carpenter, a mason, a banker, a writer, it’s irrelevant. He’s not talking of that. The whole story is simply taking place in the soul of that being. If you read it carefully the experiences were not witnessed by anyone other than himself. And he was not what they were looking for. They were looking for some majestic being to come out of space as a conqueror who would lead Israel (who had been crushed) into some victorious campaign and enslave those who had enslaved Israel. That was not Messiah at all. So they knew him, they knew his background, they knew this, that and the other. Doesn’t matter what you know of a man, the weaknesses of a man. Who isn’t weak in this world? The body is weak. Spirit is willing; the flesh is weak. No matter how strong it is it’s weak. ___(??) weaknesses, our little links that are weak. And so, if you know the little weak link you can always point the finger and say, “What, he? How can he be chosen?” Well, it wasn’t his choice, God chose him. God made the choice. And so, if God chooses, well, then it’s God’s secret of election. No one knows it. But those who know you well and know you intimately can always point the finger at your weaknesses…they know you.

I have those who wouldn’t come near me because I am a divorced man. If I was not divorced and kept twenty on the side, perfectly alright, nobody would know it, so they would come. I’m keeping no one on the side for multiple reasons. But I was once divorced, therefore, that right away that’s anathema. I know that. My podiatrist in New York City this past summer, past fall, here I am sitting in his chair and he is taking care of my feet. He said, “You know”—-he calls this lady by name, a very prominent lady, you’ll all know her if I told you, I won’t tell you, very prominent—“she’s read your books and she’s trying to convert me. I’m a Jew. She’s trying to convert me to her way of thinking, which happens to be—-without any offense because it’s a marvelous concept and nice positive way of thinking—which is Christian Science. Well, she’s a Christian Scientist and she’s trying to convert me, the Jew, to Christian Science. I said, Well, I’m a Jew. My father was an orthodox Jewish butcher, and we were raised in a strictly kosher home. Though I don’t maintain a strict kosher home, I still consider myself a Jew. But I do go to a man who is a friend of mine—and his name’s Neville—-when he comes to town. He happens to be in town at the moment, so I’m going to all of his lectures.” “Oh,” she said, “I’ve heard of that man. I have his books, the books are alright, I’ve read them, they’re alright, but I wouldn’t go near that place.” He said, “Why?” She said, “Well, because the man was divorced. Not only divorced but I also heard that he lived with a woman for years before he married the girl he’s married to now.” And so, my friend Hal not understanding the picture of life, he tried to justify my behavior. He said, “Well, can’t you forgive him? God is merciful. If God can forgive, can’t you try to be like God and forgive, too?” I said, “Hal, why do you say that? Am I in need of her forgiveness?” Of all the things in the world! So she wouldn’t come near my meetings because I was once married and someone told her I lived with a woman. Well, really, every husband lives with a woman!

Goodnight.