Living Water

The very first symbol given us in the Bible is that of water. You find it in the 2nd verse, the 1st chapter of Genesis. Before his first creative act, we’re told that God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Before his first creative act, he moved upon the face of the waters. Water is a very precious symbol to me because of my first vision at the age of seven.

But what is this water that he is speaking of? Here we are told in the 2nd chapter, 13th verse of Jeremiah, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that hold no water.” So here, he now defines himself as living water. In the 4th chapter, the 10th verse of John we are told, “If you only knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Here we find the same living water. He’s telling you he has the power to give you living water, which God defined as himself.

So what is the living water? Here, you listen to it carefully, for now we have the truth. And this is in the Book of Proverbs, the 27th chapter, the 19th verse, “As in water face answers to face, so the mind of man reflects the man.” Now we see what the water is: as in water face answers to face, so the mind of man reflects the man, not the mind. The mind is but a reflector—it reflects the man, the operant power. He has living water.

Blake, of whom I am very fond and speak about all the time, his first vision was that of a tree of angels, at the age of eight or nine. So he came into the family, and he told his parents he’d just seen a tree full of angels. His father, to make him a sensible boy, prepared to give him a sound thrashing. Fortunately for Blake, his mother interceded and saved him. Maybe that’s what mothers are for, to protect us from our violent fathers. Nevertheless, he wasn’t thrashed, but the father wanted to make him a reasonable, sound, solid citizen; and he was seeing angels in a tree. That’s the earliest thought we have of Blake, of anything said about Blake, and the last thought is said about a neighbor woman who was present at his deathbed. Then she went home, and she told her relatives she had just been at the death not of a man but a blessed angel. That’s what Blake taught all his life: “We become what we behold.” And here a neighbor could say she saw the death not of a man but a blessed angel.

No, he didn’t become it immediately. And undoubtedly there were unnumbered moments in his life in the seventy years that he lived where there were many, many an unangelic moment, if you read the story of Blake carefully; but in the end, he fulfilled what he beheld. All through his greatest poem, Jerusalem, that one thought permeates the entire hundred plates. “They become what they behold.” We do, every one of us. And so what is your concept of yourself today? Is your concept truly what it ought to be? A child of God or a child of Mrs. Brown? Sweet and lovely as Mrs. Brown is, sweet and lovely as your parents are in this world, it can’t compare to the concept you could hold of yourself, which is “I am the child of God.” If that truly is your concept of yourself, and you look into the mirror of your mind and behold such a concept of self, it may not appear immediately in your world, but it will appear. For by this law, we become what we behold.

I know that when I was seven, my first vision was that of water. It used to frighten me. It happened once a month until I reached the age of puberty. I could always tell when it was coming because of that mood that would build up in me during the day. And it always repeated itself. I would become an infinite ocean, and yet I was a wave moving upon the breast of that ocean. During that interval of the night, I was both ocean and wave. And as wave, I was tossed into the air and then received back unto myself on the bosom of that ocean. It was a frightening experience. But the ocean was a very angry ocean, a turbulent ocean. And then it passed when I reached the age of puberty.

Then it was taken over by another concept of an ocean; and this time, the ocean was living water. That was when I was in my early twenties, maybe twenty or twenty-one, in the city of Larchmont, in New York City. This night in question, as I faded from this world, I became one with an immensity—I had no circumference—and it was all liquid golden light. But not an angry light, it was a soft, pulsing light. The whole thing was soft and pulsing, and I was it and there was nothing but. There was no wave now; there was integration, complete integration. I was one pulsing, living, golden liquid light. It lasted through the night. For when I woke in the morning, my book that I was reading was on my chest, a very big heavy book, proving that I had not turned in my sleep. I must have been in trance. I must have gone into some cataleptic state sometime in the early evening, for the bed was practically unmoved, untouched. The sun was up, and the reading lamp was still lit. So I must have had eight or nine hours of a deep catalepsy, in this infinite ocean of golden, pulsing, liquid light.

But now, the mirror took on a different form. In such a mirror, you could see what you want to see. In such a mirror, it’s not a broken image, as when I was a boy of seven; that was a broken image. I couldn’t see anything in such a mirror; it was too turbulent. But then came that moment in time when I truly sought him. As we are told in Jeremiah, “If you seek me with all your heart, I shall be found by you… and then I will restore your fortunes” (Jeremiah 29:13). If you really seek me with all your heart, I’ll be found by you. Then all your fortunes that seem to have gone will all be restored. And so everyone can find him. Everyone will find him, when they’re thirsty to find him, for there’s a thirst that only an experience of God can quench. Nothing in the world can quench it but an experience of God.

So here tonight, this living water is your mind. You are not mind; you are God. God moves upon the face of the waters, and we are told in that 27th chapter, that 19th verse, which I just quoted, that as in water face answers face, so the mind of man reflects the man. And that man is a mind; the mind reflects the man. The man is God. God became man that man may become God. So when you look into the mind of self, what are you seeing yourself to be? Whatever you behold yourself to be, although it may not in the immediate present externalize itself in your world, if you are faithful to the vision, no power in this world can stop you from externalizing it within the world. But no power!

So in the words of Blake… and he was faithful to the divine vision in time of trouble. All the troubles of the world, the turbulent seas of the world, did not disturb the vision. He beheld the vision of an angel, a true angel. So they say he’s mad. I heard it here only recently. My wife said someone who came here asked one of the teachers in the city what he thought of Blake, and he replied, “Oh, well, that man was mad. He’s insane.” Now, Blake had all of the attributes of insanity, all the assets of insanity, but none of its liabilities, none. Would we were all as mad as he was mad. If we were as mad as he, then we would see what he saw. He wasn’t mad. He actually saw the twofold vision. He saw the threefold vision. He saw the fourfold vision.

The fourfold vision I will touch on Tuesday night, when I speak on the power, the wonder working power of attachment: for that’s the fourfold vision. But he was always twofold vision at all times. Nothing to him was simply what it appeared to the senses. A tree was not just a tree. That is what he called a single vision, Newton’s sleep, the sleep of the scientists, where, well, the moon is not a moon, the sun is only a sun, a burning body. To him it was simply angels proclaiming the glory of God. So he looked at a thistle—wasn’t only a thistle, “an old man gray.” No matter what he saw, he saw it doubly: everything had another image contained within it, until finally he could reach the fourfold vision, and that’s the perfect vision.

But here, when the mind you accept it not as some little thing that the outside world would train, just as a mirror; leave it just as a mirror, and you determine what you want to see yourself as you look into the mirror and conceive yourself to be one with God. And as you look into the mirror of your own mind, fully believing that you are he, like all mirrors, they won’t change the image, it will reflect it. And the day will come that you will be rewarded with actual experiences to prove to your own satisfaction that your image is true. You have all the experiences as recorded in scripture. For the mirror only reflects you. So if your concept of yourself is a little person, beaten, poor, and insecure, as you looked, you are going to get only confirmation of it.

Tonight you can give to yourself any gift in this world. If you only knew the gift of God and who it is, saying to you, “Give me a dream,” you would ask of him and he would give you living water. Not just water for which you would now thirst again but living water. If you really believe this is how it works, that you don’t need any being in this world, you have the mirror. Just steady it. As told in the 23rd Psalm, “He leads us beside still waters”—not stagnant water; it’s still and it can reflect. He restores my soul this way. So he leads me beside the still water. And so the mind is brought still. I’m not anxious, I’m not concerned, and I know if I look into my mind and see you as I would like to see you and convince myself and persuade myself of the reality of that image of you. I need do nothing to make it so; it becomes so. It unfolds in its own specified time, and then you conform to the image that I hold in my own mind’s eye concerning you. So the mirror only reflects the concepts I hold in myself. Not you, it’s my concept of you that I should be faithful to. If I hold the most noble concept of you and others in my world, and I remain faithful to my vision, there’s no power in the world that can stop it from externalizing itself in my world.

So here, this symbol of water is really very, very close to me. For I go back in time, the very first… we recapitulate all the things said in scripture, and the first image is water, and my first vision was that of water. I can’t tell you how frightening it was until I reached the age of puberty, and then it vanished. Then it returned as I turned into my twenties, but this time the water was not turbulent it was living, really living water. I was the only thing: I was it. And yet there was no world, there was nothing, just living, pulsing, glowing, golden light, infinite light. And then I knew, later on, that into this I could see anything that I wanted to see; and seeing it, no power in the world could stop it from coming to pass. And then because you’re not a wise man, you haven’t the scholastic background, you haven’t these things to support your claims, but no power can disturb it. For these experiences belong to a region that is much deeper and more real than that which the intellect inhabits. So all the arguments in the world that they throw up cannot disturb it, no matter what they tell you.

And so the eternal question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg”? And so it has shattered the minds of unnumbered people trying to figure out which came first. For reason tells us you couldn’t have a chicken unless you have an egg, and how could you have an egg unless you had a chicken? So which came first? The eternal problem. You can resolve it in no time with Imagination. That’s a foolish question and any attempt on the part of man to answer it is a foolish answer. They came from each other. I came from God, and God came from me. I’m just like the egg. And God, from himself I fell. He caused me to fall as the hen causes the egg to fall. That’s the end of the doctrine of the fall, no other fall. And then from that state I simply rose, like a chicken out of the egg. And that’s the end of the doctrine of evolution: I am one with the very being in whom I was before I fell from him.

So we all fall, predetermined setup, as told us in the 1st chapter, the 4th verse of Ephesians, “And he chose me in himself before the foundation of the world.” Yes, he chose me in himself before the foundation of the world. And then when all things were prepared, just like a nest—for that’s what the world is, all these galaxies, just like a nest—he drops me. I fall upon God, right into the nest; and after incubation, I, by an effort within myself, come out. And so that eggshell is just like your skull. It’s sealed, just as your skull is sealed, and within it is all that was its seeming Creator, no more, no less. When it’s all complete, you will come out. When it comes out, you will be one with God, just like God, containing within itself the same power to beget itself and drop its own being into the galaxies and let gods appear.

And so only Imagination can bridge that gap between, which came first, the chicken or the egg? No, they are one; they come from each other. As told us in the 3rd chapter, the 16th verse of Galatians: And so out of man comes Christ… “and your offspring who is Christ.” I know the whole vast world teaches something other than that. But to me, religion begins in revelation, and then it falls into dogma, into ecclesiasticisms, into rituals, into all these outer things; and there remains bound. But that’s not the truth. The truth is vision. Tell the vision just as it was given to you. If it doesn’t make sense to those who hear it, tell it without distortion, tell it just as it came. If they don’t understand it, do not modify it that they may understand it. Tell it just as it came. And so this is exactly how it happened.

So just as you’re told, “We become what we behold,” I’m trying to encourage you to take an image this night. It may be that this image you will take tonight would need no more than, say, a day, a week, or a month to materialize. I do not know the interval of time. But take a lovely, noble concept of yourself where you are contributing to the world’s good. Where you really contribute and feel clean and wholesome in that contribution. What would it be like were it true? Well, now look into your mind’s eye and see yourself as that being who contributed. For you can conceive yourself as that being. If you can, look until actually you feel the thrill of being such a being. Now, in a way that no one knows it will hatch out because out of that very vision of yours will come all that it takes to externalize it in your world.

You can be anything in this world that you want to be if you know how to move upon the face of the waters, and the face of the waters is simply moving upon your own mind, that’s all. You don’t argue with anyone. You ask no one to help you. You simply look at your own being and conceive yourself to be the man, to be already that man or that woman that you want to be. And ask no one if it is possible. If it is wealth that you want, well then, let it be wealth. If it is recognition that you want, then let it be recognition. If it is an increase in talents that you’re now expressing, then an increase in talents. I don’t care what it is. Conceive yourself to be already the being that you would like to be, and conceiving it, look for confirmation.

Were there not a reflection in this world, no one would know what he looks like. So God creates a reflector right away. It’s a mind; it’s called water. But then it’s explained to us in Proverbs what he means by water, and he tells us, “As face in water answers itself, so the mind of man reflects the man” (27:19). Not reflects the mind but reflects the man. So what is that man to himself? Then look into his mind. As he looks into his own mind, you will see reflected in that mind—it’s only a mirror—what he is to himself, and by the law that all things become what they behold, he can’t help becoming such a man. He can’t help it! So I tell you, dream nobly, dream the most idealistic states in the world, and then remain faithful to your dream, just as though it were true. And if you do, it’ll come to pass without the help of any being in the world. You don’t need it. You need no one to assist you—you’ll become exactly what you imagined yourself to be.

So this living water is not some strange thing that he’s going to give you. He’ll give you the message, that’s what he’s going to give you. He’ll tell you all about yourself. If you are thirsty to be other than what you are, ask of him—he’s within you—and tell him. He will give you living water, something so alive that it reflects exactly what you are. Nothing turbulent; I went through the turbulent state. Undoubtedly, that’s exactly what man in his earlier stage went through, where he couldn’t see anything reflected. He only saw confusion and turbulence. Then came that moment in his time when he could steady the mind, and the mind took on a living quality and became living water. But you take primitive man: he can’t conceive that anything that he is doing is causative of things that are happening in his world. He can’t conceive because he can’t see any reflection in his mind; because the mind isn’t still, the mind is too turbulent. But when man controls that mind, he turns from that violent stormy sea, which I experienced as a boy of seven, into that living, pulsing but reflecting light where he sees himself as he looks into it.

Because, looking into it, the strangest things happen. One day, reading or contemplating a similar image that was in the book that I read that night when I fell asleep—for I was reading The Life of Buddha when this first happened to me. And then this night in question—not reading the book of Buddha but contemplating Buddha—as I did so, before my eyes came this huge big flint. And then without effort on my part, it broke into many small fragments, and then invisible hands molded it into the most beautiful meditating figure that was like a Buddha, meditating. As I came closer and looked at it, I was looking at myself. I was the thing that I’m contemplating. And the thrill that was mine! Here I saw this Eastern figure sitting in the same posture as you find a Buddha, the little statue of Buddha, made of this flint. As I looked at myself and saw I was the figure that I contemplated, it glowed and glowed and glowed. When it reached the intensity of light it exploded, and then I was back where I was before.

This mirror of the mind reflects perfectly what you do. And so I tell you, try it. Try it this night. Take a glorious concept of yourself; take it of a friend; take it of your father, your mother, and your child; and you remain faithful to the image you hold of them. Do it without their knowledge, do it without their consent, and just hold it in your mind’s eye until you can see it, see it clearly. You don’t have to do anything beyond that, just see it clearly in your mind’s eye, and then leave it. In a way that no one knows and you could not consciously devise the means to bring it to pass, it will come to pass.

Now, in the very end of the book, the 22nd chapter of Revelation, brings us back as it started the Book in Genesis. We were all invited to come, those who are thirsty, come and take it without price. Take what? Take this living water. So the entire sixty-six books are permeated with this living water. And when you come to the very last chapter, almost the last verse—it’s the 17th verse of the 22nd chapter of Revelation—once more he brings in the theme of this living water. So everyone is invited to come and drink without price, buy it without money, and take it. Anyone who hears me this night, you have it, so it will cost you nothing to try it. You need no more than a determination to be something other than what you are and something great, something noble, something wonderful. Then, in your mind’s eye, see yourself as that person.

A nice way to see yourself as that is to bring a friend into your mind’s eye and have your friend by his expression and the sound of his voice and what he is saying confirm that he sees in you such a being. Let him see you, and then in your mind’s eye, see his expression, one of complete satisfaction if he’s a true friend, no envy on his part if he’s a real friend but pride on his face because he has you as his friend and he’s so proud of your accomplishments. If you want to add to it, carry on a mental conversation with him from the premise that he actually sees and approves of this you that you have become. That will tell you what you would see if you didn’t have that to reflect against your mind, what you would see in the depths as yourself. You will see the same being that he is seeing. So take a friend and use a friend to confirm that image of yourself. And may I tell you, you will be surprised how it works. But you must want him. Even “he who seeks me with all his heart, he shall find me and I will restore all of his fortunes.” But you must seek him. But all… I must really want him with all my heart. When I want him, but really want him, I’ll find him.

Then you have that enormous satisfaction that it doesn’t really matter if all the wise men in the world rose in opposition, it would make no difference whatsoever. You’re not speaking of this sphere. Not speaking of something you can see with a telescope or a microscope; it can’t be seen by any instrument made by man. It’s something entirely outside of the range of telescopes and microscopes. So you simply look right in and see it. When you become it, reason will step in and try to justify it, and all the wise men will say, “But you know that it would have happened anyway. Look, you met so and so, and then he in turn introduced you to so and so, then you got the breaks. And because you got the breaks you’ll become it. But don’t expect someone else to do it.” And then they’ll always try to minimize the working of this wonderful power. But I tell you it never fails. It never fails.

Everyone is invited—the 55th chapter of Isaiah, the very 1st verse—“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the water,” but everyone. No limitations, not just those who are of a certain race or who belong to a certain tribe but everyone who thirsts, come to the water. And there’s no price to it. Come and take it without money, without price. So everyone is invited if he’s so thirsty to come to this water. So throughout the entire sixty-six books, it’s permeated with this fantastic water, and the water is your own wonderful mind. The one who’s looking into it morning, noon, and night is the man that you really are—and that man is destined one day to awake to find himself God.

Yes, you fell, deliberately. God allowed you to fall, for the name Yod He Vau He, the verb He Vau He, ___(??), means “to fall” or, causatively, “to cause to fall”; or “to blow the wind” or, causatively, “to make the wind blow, or make it move.” And so it was God, for that’s his name, Yod He Vau He, who like the chicken allowed the egg to fall. But in that egg which was fertilized by God is himself; and then after incubation, it from within makes an effort—for the plan is all there—and breaks it. Then it rises as [does] a chicken, capable of the same creative power, the same creation, that that which seemingly brought it into being, one with God, its own begetter.

So tonight, if you have a concordance and you want to pursue it beyond the hour, just take it and take the word water, and go through chapter after chapter and see what is said of this wonderful water. First of all, the argument in the 4th chapter of John, the minute he tells of this water, “Well, how can you do it? You have no bucket, no rope, and the well is deep. You mean the water you would give us is greater water than I can get from this well that our forefather Jacob dug for us?” And he tells you, “With this water you thirst again. The water that I’ll give you will be a newer well of water, springing up into everlasting life. It will never change.” But she couldn’t quite understand him, and then he revealed who he is to her.

The first miracle performed in the gospel of John is turning water into wine; in other words, into living water. From a turbulent state, you turn it into something alive, a living water. So we are told, in the first letter to Timothy, the fifth chapter, “Drink no more water; use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your many afflictions” (verse 23). It hasn’t a thing to do with wine that you and I would enjoy with a good meal. But you stop simply absorbing what to do and you become a doer, and you do it. So stop drinking water: stop simply absorbing news morning, noon, and night as to what I should do to become what I would like to be; and then become a doer, and do it. So you turn water into wine.

So the first miracle performed in the gospel of John, which is in the second chapter, he filled stone jars with water and drew forth not water this time but wine, living water. For that’s what wine is. It’s something alive. And so he turned it into something that is really living in the life of man. So if anyone goes out of here tonight, using wine for your stomach’s sake and not simply absorbing the news, to hear what you heard this night and not do it, you are still drinking water. But if you go out and you never return here again because your pattern changes in the world and you go elsewhere, but you don’t forget what you heard, and not forgetting it you apply it, then you are drinking wine. You are putting it into practice no matter where you are in the world, and as you put it into practice, you’ll get the results to fulfill James’ statement to us, “Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself” (James 1:22).

So become a doer, and a doer is to put into practice what you heard this night. Start with a friend. Take any friend in your world who you think tonight could really be helped financially, socially, and physically. But can he be helped? You think he can be helped, well, then you help him. Bring him before your mind’s eye, represent him to yourself as he ought to be seen by the whole vast world, and you believe in the reality of that image of him. You’re moving like God upon the face of the waters, and you’re creating just as God created in the beginning. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters… and then God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). But he did nothing until he moved upon the face of the water.

So you can walk the street and move on the face of the water, ride the bus and do it, sit quietly and do it. But still the mind. No matter what formerly he or she appeared to be, that’s a very disturbing thought if you must fight with it. No matter what they were, that’s like a stormy ocean if they aren’t pleasant, if things aren’t right for them. So you don’t try to do anything about it. You just bring them before your mind’s eye, as they ought to be seen by you and by the world and by themselves. And so you put that as the image to be reflected from this wonderful moving water, which is your own mind.

So you read it when you go home, “As in water face answers to face, so the mind of man reflects the man.” How can you get around that? The mind of man reflects the man. So a man is complaining that society is not kind to him, that the boss on the job is too cruel, and he’s not making enough money? He’s reflecting only the being that he conceives himself to be, and they in his world are only mirroring what he within himself has set up as a pattern. If he doesn’t like what is happening because they are only mirrors, well, then let him reshuffle the deck as it were and change the concept he holds of himself. Changing it, just let him be faithful. For remember that interval of time, as told us in the Book of Habakkuk, that second chapter: “Every vision has its own appointed hour; it ripens; it will flower. If it seems long then wait; it is sure and it will not be late” (2:3). So every egg has a different interval of time in which to hatch out: that of a chicken, three weeks; that of some other bird, maybe a shorter interval; another bird, a longer interval. The same is true of the eggs that bring men into the world, and sheep and cattle into the world. There are intervals in time. And so your image tonight of a friend or yourself will have its own appointed hour, and if you are faithful to it and not addle it, it will ripen and it will flower.

So I invite you to try it. And then you will know this mystery of the water; for I’ve told you the Bible is a mystery not to be kept secret, but a matter that is really mysterious in character. There’s no reason to think for one moment that it should be held as a secret just for a few of us; tell it to anyone in this world. But the Bible is not what as we’re told in that passage from Jeremiah, that 2nd chapter, when he said, “My people have committed two evils”—and then he states the first—“how they turned from him, the fountain of living water, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that hold no water” (verse 13). And these broken cisterns are simply all of the isms of the world, but all of them. They’re trying to get something out of this broken cistern and you can’t get it.

For the men who wrote our Bible… and no one knows the authors, no one. This one we quoted this night from Genesis, there isn’t a scholar worthy of the name who writes on this book that has any manuscript that is signed. There are three letters. One he speaks of as the J manuscript, the E manuscript, and the P manuscript; and that’s all they have to go by, completely unsigned. There is no identity to the authors. Who were they? How did they come into the world? Were they born as we were born? Did they really come as you and I came through the womb of woman? Or did they appear in our world, as I, one night many years ago, stepped into another world, without going through the womb of a woman in that world. I was just as real as this world, solidly real. And so stepping from my bed into that world and it wasn’t this earth, but a solid world just like this, with people clothed as you are clothed. And if anyone had arrested me there and compelled me to give a birth certificate or give an identification card that would be understood in that world, I could not have done it. So I was not there through any normal channel of physical birth. I returned here, without returning here in any known way.

So who is E and who is P and who is J? They give us symbols and letters, but we have no way of knowing who the author of Genesis is. As far back as we go, you can’t find any manuscript that these scholars would in any way catalog, save it’s the J manuscript, it’s an E manuscript, or it’s a P manuscript. So who are these fantastic authors? Because if you treat it even as literature, you wouldn’t find anything greater than Genesis. And as far as vision goes, where would we find something greater? But who are the authors? Completely unknown to mortal mind. But there it stands, those fifty wonderful chapters. And the whole thing is permeated with water. Our historians and teachers of the Bible try to convince us that water was such a precious item in the desert, so precious where this whole thing was laid, that’s why they made so much of water. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. Hasn’t a thing to do with it? So he comes into the desert to water his flock and the well was there and covered and he rolled away the stone and watered the flock. After he watered the flock, then he rolled the stone back and covered the well, Jacob’s well.

So we are the sheep of his pasture, are we not? And so we are watered by anyone who knows how to water it and to feed all the sheep until they are completely satisfied. And then it’s automatically rolled back. When one comes behind you and reads that same chapter, it’s just like a closed book. He picks up the book, he turns to the 29th chapter of Gensis, he reads the story of the rolling away of the stone and the watering of the flocks, and he wonders, What is it all about? If someone knows how to roll away the stone and how to actually take that water of psychological meaning and give it to the world, after he’s done it automatically the stone is rolled back. The one who comes behind him who reads the same chapter can’t interpret it. It’s always a sealed well.

But tonight, you’ve heard it, and I think that you will try it. So let me now clarify just in a few moments the water on which God moved—he said, “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”—that water is your own mind. If tonight it’s too disturbed because you are too anxious, then that’s like a stormy sea, a turbulent sea. But wait a while; it will become quiet, still water. Still running, for it is alive, but still enough to reflect the being that you want to see. And then the way to see it is to assume that you are what you’d like to be. Having assumed it, look and see the world reflect that man that you are because they all see it. Having seen it reflected on the faces of your friends, drop it. Just drop it. And that’s the fall. That seed that came from you has its own appointed hour, and it will grow and come into this world.

So you try it. And may I tell you, after it happens—for it will happen—then share with me your good news by telling me how it worked that I, in turn, may tell it from this platform and let us all be mutually encouraged by our faith. If it works for you—which it will—then you tell me what you did and how it worked, and then I, in turn, will tell it to everyone present. They, in turn, will be encouraged to go on and be as faithful to their visions as Blake was, in spite of all the things that he went through in the interval. For his life, like the life of every great man, is really an allegory. Every person in the world, his life is really an allegory. People don’t quite realize it.

In Blake’s life… one of the outstanding things, this gentle, tender man who couldn’t hurt a fly, and returning to his garden one day, he saw a drunken soldier and took him bodily and led him down the road. Then the man brought action against him and accused him of insulting the king, which is a frightful offense in England, and it was more so then, in his day. This innocent man was accused because a drunken soldier wanted to get even. It was quite a trial in England. And then you see this wonderful story, a soldier is always a symbol of authority and a garden is always creativity, and here his garden. He was selling his soul at that time to a man who wanted him to become a portrait painter, and he didn’t want any part of it. So Blake was selling his soul, his creativity, to this man who had money because doing this work, well, then his financial status would be eased somewhat. But he was selling his creative power, and so here, in his garden was the drunken man of authority. For the one who employed him had the authority and the power.

And then he broke it and refused not to make any portraits and not have one model in the world. He never used a model. He saw what he wanted to paint, as clearly as any model could ever be in this world. When he wanted to draw the soul of a flea, he saw the soul of a flea, and it was man. For the flea is a blood-sucking insect, but men are also blood sucking. Those who employ without proper compensation, are they not taking the blood of others? They don’t care what happens to you when you go home. If you have a family of twelve and they’re not well fed, they don’t care once their profits are big enough. And if you saw them spiritually, just like fleas, for a flea is simply a blood-drinking insect. They are taking the blood of those without proper reward; they’re bloodsucking.

When Blake painted his wonderful flea, the soul of a flea, the ghost of a flea, you should see that monstrous thing, but it’s human. Everything is man in the world. And so the life of any great man, like a Blake, it’s an allegory. So when he put his garden back in form, then the soldier went up. Blake won the case eventually. They all knew the man was perjuring himself. Blake would not say anything against the crown, and it was proven. But meanwhile, he just went through hell to prove it. But that was the turning point in his life, like the great allegory of his life. But here, his first thought in the world, “a tree full of angels”; and the very last thought, “I was at the bedside this day not of a man when he died, I saw the death of a blessed angel.” So what he began as a vision, he fulfilled as a man: he saw an angel as a child, and he died as a blessed angel.

So tonight, you see a noble being. When you make your exit from this world, make your exit as it. But your true destiny is God, for we are one with God. He became you that you may become him.

Now let us go into the Silence.