Jesus Only

Now tonight’s subject is “Jesus.” Last week, a friend of mine said to me, “You know, I’ve heard you so often, but really over quite a period now, and I’m not quite sure that you believe in Jesus.” Well, that’s my friend’s opinion, perfectly all right. If I said to you, “Do you believe in God?” the chances are everyone here would say yes, without batting an eye. And if you asked me, “Do you believe in God?” I would, without hesitating, I would say, “Why, certainly I believe in God, but, you know, you and I may be miles and ages away in what we believe.”

Today, I said I believe in democracy. Well, so does Khrushchev, but it’s not my concept of democracy. Or maybe… how old is the United Nations, I don’t know, but the Australian Ambassador, who represents Australia at the United Nations in San Francisco, ___(??), he defined for us his country’s concept of democracy, which is my concept, but it may not be yours; and certainly, it is not Khrushchev’s. He said, “Democracy to us in Australia is based upon the principle of compromise, but not upon the compromise of principle.” All the difference in the world! For that’s my concept of democracy: this two party system, where this area of the world, our world, needs help, but it doesn’t—someone in the mid-West they don’t need the same kind of help, but they will cast their vote with me, representing this part of the world, that I may get the help I need for the people I represent. And so I don’t need what he wants when the vote comes up and he’s putting it forward, but I remember his kindness to me and so I will throw my vote with him. That’s not compromising principles; it’s simply the principle of compromise.

So when I was asked, “Do you believe in Jesus?” I said, “Well, I don’t think anyone walking the face of this earth believes more in Jesus than I do.” But, who is Jesus? The poet said, “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” Well, the authors of the Bible, and no one to this day knows who they are, no one knows the author of the Bible, save it’s inspired and dictated by God. So when we read Jeremiah, Isaiah, and all these names, no one knows the true prophet who received an inspiration, this Word of God. But they knew, as the poet I just quoted knew, that we understand best not bare truths but thoughts put into stories. Man wants to see the truth, and so, they presented the story in such a manner that we could see the truth. But over the years, man has mistakenly taken personifications for persons; they’ve mistaken the vehicle that conveys the message for the message; the gross first-sense for the ultimate-sense intended. So today, we have idols made out of the personifications of truth.

So here, let me this night try to explain to you what I mean when I use the word Jesus. You see, you and I name a child because we like a relative, or a friend or maybe the sound of the name. You will say, “Well, I like that, that sounds well,” so we give a child a name based upon sound, or based upon the fact that we like our uncle or our father or our mother, or maybe some friend. But in the Bible, this great book of God, it is not done in that manner. In the Hebraic world, names are chosen for their meaning in ___(??); so all these names are chosen for their meaning in the great drama of God. So what is the name Jesus? It’s the Anglicized form of the Hebrew word Joshua. It means “Jehovah is salvation.” Jehovah is a savior. Therefore, the 43rd of the Book of Isaiah tells us, “For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I, I am He, and besides me there is no savior” (verse 11). Call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. So he’s called Jesus, and the only savior is Jehovah; and Jehovah’s only name is I AM.

So who is Jesus? He’s the savior, the only savior. He will save all people, his people, from their sins, and his name is Jesus. The word Jesus is spelled the same root as Jehovah. It begins Yod He Vau—that is the root of the name of the Lord, which we call the Lord. Which in Hebrew, don’t even sound it, it’s so sacred a name you don’t sound it. But you’ve got to sound it; if you could, they translate the word “the Lord.” But he is called “the Lord.” And so, Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same. But the name of Jehovah—and man forgets it, he just can’t keep the tense with him—the name is I AM.

So, when I make the claim that God so loved you that he became you, I mean that literally. That’s not some poetical statement; I mean it literally. He so loved you that he became you. It is God’s purpose to give you himself, as though there were no others in the world, just God and you; and finally only you. The gift is complete and it’s only you, for his name is I AM. So when we are told he bears all the sins of the world, all the blows of the world, that’s to be taken as literally true.

Many years ago, when I was in the theatre, this goes back into the twenties, the early thirties, there was quite an argument going on in our little circle in New York City as to the true author of Shakespeare. Many believed it was Bacon, others believed other people, but no one would accept the fact there was a man called Shakespeare. And so, someone presented the argument it was an acrostic and they brought me the book of The Tempest, written in 1611, the year that our Bible came out in English—that was the year that the King James Version was presented to the public. So Shakespeare wrote The Tempest in the atmosphere of that beautiful English. And no one understanding English would put anyone in Shakespeare’s class when it comes to the use of English. We love Mr. Churchill—I love him as a man; I love all of these great men, men and women that walk the face of the earth over the years, over the centuries—but you have to really, well, you must be able to read the English tongue to put anyone in a close race with Shakespeare and the use of the English tongue. Whoever he was—I don’t know whether he was Bacon and I question that seriously—but whoever he was, there was a master. And he had but 300 years and no one truly knows who wrote Shakespeare.

But here is the year 1611 and he brought out The Tempest. In the first act, second scene, the heroine of the story, Miranda, turns to her father, Prospero. He was the banished Duke of Milan and shipwrecked. And so he had the power of enchantment and so using his magical powers he created storms and lightning, and all kinds of disturbances, turbulence to rescue the usurper of his title, which he did. So Miranda turns to her father, Prospero, and it’s a very simple little story. But, instead of using the acrostic in this, which they try to convince you Shakespeare did it, I thought of only what was there. It has stuck with me through the years. And this is what she said to her father: “You have often begun to tell me what I am but stopped and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding, stay, not yet.” Here she’s asking, Please tell me who I am. Tell me. You’ve often begun to tell me what I am but stopped and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding, stay, not yet.

Well, whoever was Shakespeare was a giant, a mystical giant to have written that little speech of Miranda. For here, we are Miranda, left to a bootless inquisition. I need not tell you about the word inquisition, where a man is put through the tortures of hell, bootless. Well, a boot covers the foot and the foot has always been the symbol of the generative organs of man, always, in all the languages of the world. When I wash the foot, I am cleaning the creative organ of a man. When I take the linen cloth from you and I wipe that foot, I am exposing the creative organ of the man. When I say, “Take off your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is holy ground,” I am telling you to uncover the creative organ of the man. On that eighth day, the circumcision is the unveiling of the creative organ of a man.

So here, it is an unveiling of this power, where man is then subjected to the most violent rape in the world. Not only sexual rape but all kinds of rape: revolutions are rapes; wars are rapes. All the violence of the world is the bootless inquisition. And so, “You have left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding, stay, not yet.” It isn’t yet time for you to know who you are and what you are. I can tell you this night who you are in the hope you’ll believe it, but with all of my faith and my intensity I question seriously that you will believe it. I tell you that you are Jesus, the only Jesus. There’s nothing but Jesus, and Jesus and Jehovah are one. There’s nothing but God in this world. And Jesus is playing this part and he was left to the bootless inquisition, where they spat upon him, where they hurt him, where they did everything in the world conceivable for man to do to man, as Browning said, “Man’s inhumanity to Man.” It’s part of the drama.

And so, “Tell me. You’ve often begun to tell me what I am but stopped and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding, stay, not yet.” If you have an original portfolio, I don’t mean the original, I mean a facsimile, I have one at home; and when you see it printed it does spell Bacon, no question about it. For the beginning of every line is capitalized and so the first line is indented, so that’s not intended to be read. “You have often,” that’s indented, and it begins with “Begun.” Well, “Begun” is a ___(??) “B.” “Begun to tell me what I am but stopped.” Then you come back to the next line, “And”—and “And” is capitalized—“And left me to a bootless inquisition.” Come back to the next line, “Concluding,” well, “C” is capitalized. “Concluding, stay, not yet.” So you come down the first capitalized line and it spells B-A-C, but there is no other line. You go across the bottom line and it spells O-N. So that’s how my friend, who tried to persuade me Bacon was the author, told me where in an acrostic the author was concealing his identity. But that’s not what I got from that wonderful, wonderful speech of Miranda. We are Miranda, and we are left to this bootless inquisition, until that moment in time when the waiting is over and, like Job, we cry out: “You know I am guiltless. Why then do you by this agony try to win from me a concession of guilt?”

So we are the Jesus. We are Jesus. But it’s part of the great plan to awaken us as God. And so I do believe in Jesus, but my Jesus is not the concept of the world’s concept of Jesus. He’s not something detached from me, something out in space to whom I pray, like an idol. No, my Jesus is in me as my own very being, the only being that I really am. That’s Jesus. Only Jesus is resurrected. Only Jesus ascends; the Son of man. If he is not in me, I can’t ascend. If he’s not in me, I can’t resurrect. If he’s not in me, I can’t be saved, for God saves himself. It is God buried in man. Who went into the sepulcher? Ask the question, “Who went into the sepulcher? They put Jesus there. Well, who was resurrected from the sepulcher? Jesus. Did anyone else go in? They went in only as ___(??), but the one who resurrected was he. Well, the sepulcher is your own wonderful skull, that’s the sepulcher. In your skull Jesus is buried; out of your skull Jesus will come. And when he comes out he’s not another, you don’t see another; it’s your very being. Listen to the words, “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). How can I be like him and not be he? “It does not yet appear… but when he does appear we shall be like him.” “Stay, not yet.” You don’t quite know who you are? It’s not quite yet.

But I’ll give you a cue as to how to bring it to pass. It begins, the very first words put into the mouth of Jesus in the earliest gospel, the gospel of Mark, he makes the statement, “The time is fulfilled”—it has to be filled up first, all the ___(??), like pregnancy—and “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (1:15). Repent is a prerequisite to entry into the kingdom. And repentance hasn’t a thing to do with remorse or regret; it has only to do with a radical change of attitude toward life, that’s repentance.

This is what I mean by practicing my religion. If I say I believe in him, all right, then repent. Who repents? Jesus repents. Jesus? What did he do that was wrong? You are he. Nothing wrong, it’s simply missing the mark, that’s sinning. If I miss the mark in life, I must repent by changing my attitude radically toward that state, and see it as it ought to be seen. Who, by me? No, by the world. And believe in this changed attitude of myself toward anything in this world, and fix it, believing in it. If I live in that assumption just as though it were true, it’ll become true. So I produce the signs. These are the wonders of Jesus; all these signs come to pass.

And when I least expect it—I’m still in the sepulcher—I will awaken. And may I tell you, if Jehovah and Jesus are one, when he is awakened, is he not awakened by himself? When he is born, Jehovah has no father and mother; therefore, if I am born and I am Jesus, am I not then self-begotten? Then don’t I come out of my own being by myself? And I’m telling from experience exactly what happened, you are self-born, self-begotten. When God actually becomes you, he becomes you; there’s no one on the outside. He actually gives himself to you, as though there were no others in the world, just you, and you are he. So when you come out you are born.

So to me, when I use the words Jesus Christ I speak of the way, the truth. What way? The only way—the way to what? The way to everything in the world: the way to health, the way to wealth, the way to everything, but, specifically, the way to the Father. “No man comes unto the Father save by me,” but no man, and yet, “When you see me you see the Father” (John 14.6). You can’t come to the Father in any way save by me, for “I am the way.” And those who were in Christianity in the first, second, and third centuries were spoken of as “the people of the Way,” capital W. They were not all Christians; that came later. They were called “the people of the Way.” You can read it in the Book of Acts, the 9th chapter. He goes to persecute the people of the Way; and then he finds who Jesus really is: he finds him within himself, and he reveals the Way, and the Way is rejected. God has planned everything as it has come out and as it will be consummated, but everything in the world. Let no one tell you it’s going to pot, that others will take advantage, no, you’re still to be exposed to this bootless inquisition, like Job. And when the drama is over in the individual case, well, then he starts on the Way.

Now here is the first recorded word of the teacher in the Book of Luke. He asked for the Bible. There was only the Old Testament, so they gave him the Bible, the Old Testament, the covenants of Jehovah, and he opened it up to the 61st chapter of Isaiah. For even to this day, the first five books of the Bible are read over a period of three years, but the reader has freedom of choice as to what part of the prophets he will read. And so, they read—and it takes three years to complete the reading of the first five books, called the Torah, the law—but you’re free while you have your congregation to read any part of the book. And so he opened up to Isaiah 61 and he only reads the first verse and the first-half of the second one. He doesn’t complete the second when it comes to vengeance. He stops at the first half of the second verse. The verse begins: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me… he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor… to open up the prison doors to all that are in prison and to set free all that are bound; and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Our earliest fathers in the church in the second century took this passage of Luke and they went out and preached it. It is still in print from the earliest fathers in what is today the Catholic Church. So that was the beginning of it all. And this father made the statement that this first passage read from Isaiah meant that God’s work was completed in a year, proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord, and he took it to mean that whatever that work was it was done in a year. And he was right. In spite of all that has happened in the interval, he was perfectly right. After this exposure to the bootless inquisition, when we are now lifted up, it only takes one year to complete that passage, from resurrection, birth, discovery of David, and the splitting of the temple and the ascension right into Zion, all within a year. And it happens in three nights, spread over a part of the year. Again, “in three days, three nights, I will rebuild it.” This time it’s the perfect temple that is Job. So it is that first part of that second verse of Isaiah, “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” And so, he proclaims it and he tells them all, “There’s only one Way to the Father.”

So follow the story of Jesus. Read it carefully, all that they say about him, and then know it’s your story. The day will come that all these things will happen in you. The Bible is not chronologically exact, but it’s a beautiful story. But the story is simply assembled into a nice arrangement, as Luke implies. He does not claim any great chronological exactitude. He claims only that his arrangement is a better arrangement than his predecessors. You read the first four verses of Luke and you’ll see he’s implying his is a better arrangement of the source material. So he has the source material and then he arranges it in story form that people could see the truth. For man insists on seeing the truth. So to see the truth he personifies it. And so you personify truth, you personify the Way, you personify life, you personify everything and they take on human characteristics. And so if you insist on seeing a Jesus other than yourself you’re going to see another.

What individual it was in whom the only Jesus awoke, who knows? Who knows what the individual’s name was? It means nothing, for its only Jesus that matters. So what was the mask that he wore when he awoke? What does it matter? He could have been in any form, in any sex, because, as we’re told in the last part of the 3rd chapter of Galatians, “In Christ Jesus there is no Greek, no Jew, no bond, no free, no male, no female” (verse 28). So he is beyond the organization of sex, beyond freedom and slavery in this world when he awakes. When he awakens he’s completely above it all.

And the only thing I speak of here is Jesus. He’s your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s Jesus. He’s your own wonderful I-am-ness, that’s Jesus. Now, test him and see. For you’re told, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless of course you fail to meet the test.” I hope you will discover that we have not failed. Now this you will read in the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians. He’s asking you to test it. If he is in you and by him all things are made, and without him there’s nothing made that is made, then test him.

Test him in the most simple, simple way. If he is my Imagination, and imagining is creating reality, I could go into my inner being as it were and assume that things are as I would like them to be, and if my premise is sound, if it’s true, it should prove itself in performance, shouldn’t it? And so, I go to bed in the assumption that I am now the one that I would like to be, just now. And then, in the not distant future, I reshuffle the world to mirror my accomplishment; the whole thing worked; it takes on form. But if it does and I repeat it and it works again, and I repeat it and it works again, haven’t I found the Creator? For by him all things are made and without him there’s nothing made that is made. Well, suddenly, I make something out of nothing. I didn’t ask anyone’s help, I didn’t turn to anyone to assist me. I simply dared to assume that I am what at the moment my reason and my senses deny, and remaining loyal to my assumption it objectified itself and became a fact. I remembered what I did. Remembering what I did, I am faithful now to him. I found him.

But now you don’t go and say “I am Jesus.” No one must go out and say “I am he,” for you’re bragging. No one can brag because everyone is Jesus, but they don’t know it. All you can do is tell them that they are, and when you tell them who they are ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of the world would be offended, embarrassed because you have insulted their God. They can’t feel equal to that. They feel unclean. They do not feel they could possibly come near that state, therefore, when you tell them, that’s blasphemy, and they’ll tell you it’s blasphemy. But I tell you it’s not blasphemy. I and my Father are one. But we are one, and you can make the same claim.

The day will come and everything that I’ve told you concerning the Way will prove itself in you. I’m speaking from experience, I am not theorizing. This is not theory with me; it’s all experience. Hasn’t a thing to do with any orthodox training whatsoever. I’ve had none of it. Only the simple training of a boy raised in a Christian environment, where we had Sunday school and regular meals and the usual discussions in a Christian home where we discussed the Bible. That was my only training. So I have had no orthodox training. This was not from anything man has told me. It’s all based upon what I have experienced, all by revelation. It came unsought, unexpectedly, and all within one year—the acceptable year of the Lord. When that moment comes, you move up that moment of resurrection through the birth, through all, right into Zion, the house of God, all in a year, remaining clothed in this garment of flesh that you may tell the story until you take it off for the last time. And you will take it off for the last time after you’ve gone through that acceptable year of the Lord.

And so, I’ve tried to tell it as clearly as I can. I have not embellished it, I haven’t added to the story, just as it happened to me. I have told it in the very last chapter of my latest book The Law and the Promise, and I quoted with words from the scriptures. So I have presented two witnesses. When you bring two then you have conclusive evidence if they agree. For two by nature would be opposition, would be enmity, it would be difference. For when two different persons agree in testimony it is conclusive. And so, if I had the experience and then searching through the ancient scripture I found supporting text for the experience, so here is agreement in testimony and, therefore, it’s conclusive. And so I gave you the story as it happened to me and gave you that text in scripture that supports that experience.

And some lady said to me tonight before I took the platform, “I wanted to give a few books away to my friends and you haven’t Awakened Imagination at the moment, would you recommend some other title.” Well, I recommend that among one of the three. I said, “My friend, pick three different titles and have them exchange the books. Well, here’s my latest book. It’s one I recommend.” “Well, she said, “I’m quite sure that if they read the last chapter first, they’d tear it up.” I hope not. For the purpose of the book is to tell all how God’s law works. But what would be the law without the promise? And you could have this law so down, so perfectly under your control that you could own the earth, and yet not have the promise fulfilled. Because no one is justified by law before God, you can’t be. It’s only the fulfillment of the promise. And the promise is given to man; it’s grace, after he has gone through this bootless inquisition. And I mean bootless too.

God in his infinite mercy hides it from himself in the sense he has taken from me the memory of my past. For if man could only see what he had to live through to reach the fulfillment of the promise, I doubt that God himself would venture forward. He had to go into this horror and this really ___(??). The churches speak of hell, and they’re in it, and they don’t know that? They think of some greater hell on the outside when they are in hell and they don’t know this is hell. When some individual consumed with a passion unsatisfied, isn’t that hell? That passion may be any kind of passion, an ambition beyond the wildest dreams of man and you can’t satisfy it, that’s hell. Look into the world, and see the horrors and see all the things that are happening morning, noon, and night. There isn’t a morning’s paper that you can’t pick up and see a page of hell.

And so we are in it, we are in this bootless inquisition until seven times over, ___(??) heated seven times more than they were wont to be. Well, when you are brought out, just pure gold, pure gold. And we are the very being who walked through it all. For in the furnaces there were threefold men and then came the Son of God. But here we have a threefold man. Know what’s a threefold man? You’re a threefold man. But in the presence of it all, one untouched, not even the stench of smoke upon him, was the Son of God. Read it in the Book of Daniel. In the furnaces behold the three-fold man, but the fourth is Jesus. And Jesus is the reality of every being in the world. There is nothing but Jesus. So when they asked Blake, “What do you think of Jesus?” Without batting an eye, he replied, “Jesus is the only God,” but quickly added, “But so am I and so are you.” Crab Robinson to whom he said this couldn’t understand it, just recorded it in his diary. Luckily we have his diary. And Blake did not elaborate, didn’t go beyond it.

But I am telling you, when you go to bed this night and you feel sleepy and you say “I am,” that’s his name. And you believe in him, well then, believe that he is actually creating. There’s nothing impossible to Jesus. Well then, at that very moment believing that Jesus is your own wonderful I-am-ness, what would you like to be? Assume that you are it and go sound asleep just as though it were true. That’s how it operates: Feel as you would feel were it true. Name what you would like to be true, and then go sound asleep.

Now, don’t put this in the closet until I get back in November. This is something to live by. Religion should be practiced and we don’t practice religion by simply going to church and listening to whatever the minister has to say, ___(??) lovely as they are. And I’m all for it, perfectly fine, but that’s not practicing religion. Practicing religion is living it every moment of time while we’re here, and you practice it best by practicing repentance. Listen to the words, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the good news, believe in the gospel.” But repent. And repentance tests man’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. And so I am, and I name it. But I don’t like it. Well now, can I persuade myself that I am exactly what I would like to be, which is opposed by what I seemingly am? Then I persuade myself that I really am what I would like to be. That tests my ability, my Imagination, to do such a thing. But can I do it? Well, try it.

Can I, while sitting here physically, assume that I am elsewhere, if I want to be elsewhere, when there’s no way to that other place? No money to take you there, no time to allow it, but nothing. Well, can I assume that I am, knowing that something will change in my world if it’s a radical change to allow this journey to take place within you? And I’ll make it across this world. Well, try it. I have tried it and it works. I’ve tried it so that now I don’t allow myself to experiment if I am not serious. Because, if I do it just for exercise and I don’t do it with something I really want to realize, the being I really am doesn’t forget it. They’ll teach me lessons and bring it to pass when I least expect it and don’t want it. So, I only experiment with serious things, things I really want to bring to pass. And I tell you it won’t fail you, but you are the operant power. It doesn’t work by itself; you have to operate it.

And so, I tell you, you are Jesus. Let no one tell you that you are not. There’s only Jesus in the world. Yet he’s housed in every being, even those who said there is no God, in every being in the world. Those who call themselves atheists and are proud of it, he’s housed in them or they couldn’t even breathe. Nothing in the world could breathe and live were it not that Jesus is buried within him, in the sepulcher of his own wonderful skull; and there he remains while he goes through all the pains of the world to awaken himself as that individual. So you’ll understand the words at the grand transfiguration. When they looked up, Moses was there, Elijah was there, one personifying the law and one personifying the promise. And then came the awakening on the part of the disciples and then there was only Jesus, Jesus only. He had fulfilled it all, fulfilled the promise, having fulfilled it, Jesus only. And so, you are destined to awaken, completely awaken, as God.

Now let us go into the Silence.