The Eternal Plan

Since 1959 I have been in the unique position to share with you God’s plan of salvation. I did not know it before. I knew his law, taught it, practiced it, tried to live by it, and for years helped hundreds and hundreds to change their world to make it conform to they dreams. But in July, I can say with Paul to me this grace was given: to preach and to make known to all men what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God. But it’s such an unusual plan, it’s sounlikewhat men expected that from here to the East Coast and north I still find the resistance that has been found throughout the centuries. It’s not what man was looking for. He thought of some entirely different savior. He didn’t see aplanof salvation; he saw a savior outside of himself, not a plan. So I can also say with Paul, to me he has revealed his mystery, “the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time” (Eph.1:9, RSV).

Well, Christ of scripture is not a Christ of any little secular history, it’s the cosmic Christ. It is the Christin youthat has made you alive. Christ in you is the hope of glory (Col.1:26,27). In this Christ the plan is concealed. It is in this Christ that the plan will unfold, and when it unfolds you will stand amazed, awestruck, but there is no other interpretation to the unfolding of the plan. You will see why others resist it, because it’s not what you expected. But because you’ve been here over the months, and some over the years, you are at least witnesses in a sense, because you can say, I heard it said and I trust him. Well, I promise you, you will be able to be a witness from some internal experience, where you can say “I heard of thee with the hearing of the ear”—“I heard him say” that’s the lesser revelation—“but now my eye sees thee” (Job42:5)—now I have experienced it. So you will say with Job, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” And this comes always at the end of the journey. Then you don’t argue the point, you simply tell it, you tell it to everyone. Some will hear it, believe you, and others will reject it. It’s so difficult to change man’s misunderstanding of scripture and put it back upon track after you have been given the plan. So he said, to me this grace was given—for what purpose?—to preach and to make all men see what is the plan. Here is aplanof the mysteries, which has been hidden for ages in God. And then comes the plan unfolding in you, and then you share it with the world.

So here in this last week I want to remind you of this eternal plan. Not to omit his law, his law is perfectly marvelous: you can be anything you want to be in this world by applying his law if you bear in mind that at all times men and women are only in states. A man is in the state of poverty. The being occupying the state of poverty must express poverty; but you need not continue in that state. The man occupying the state of being wealthy must express wealth; he need not continue in that state. But wealth and poverty and all these things are simply states, and men pass through them and leave the state behind, as you and I pass through a city and leave the city behind. To say that the city through which I passed ceases to be because I’ve gone through it and I’m no longer in it, is just as silly as to say a state through which I have passed has ceased to be because I no longer occupy it. I occupy poverty and pass on if I am so inclined or I know how to do it, but poverty remains forever, it’s a state. Foolishness remains forever. Hate remains forever. All these things remain forever. You can hear this law for years and years, and suddenly, if you’re not awake, you fall into a state of hate, and it becomes so natural to you. You will find people who actually tell you trying to support their concepts of why you should hate, and use the book of books to support it. Let me remind you the Bible has not a thing to do with secular history; it’ssacredhistory, Israel’s sacred history which comes to climax and fulfillment in the unfolding of this plan which is hidden in Christ in you. When it begins to unfold, it always unfolds in the very end of the journey.

So tonight you keep in mind the eternal law based purely upon states. Blake could say, “I do not consider the wise or the just or the wicked”—and you could name all the states—“that men falling into these states are in supreme states, but simply states of the sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil when it leaves paradise following the serpent.” This serpent is simply God himself. This is the great drama, an eternal drama, of the descent and ascent of one presence and that presence is God. We are told “It has been told us” or rather “It has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were.” Now put that down, it’s a law. Although Shakespeare said it it’s based upon an eternal principle. God’s first urge was a wish: Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. There’s not one word in scripture where he ever changed that plan. So that “Let us make man” man is part of the eternal structure of the universe, and here is a presence now who exchanges his divine form for that of man. So God becomes man that man may become God.

So here, he actually exchanges his divine form. In fact, the word “assume” and the word “form” as used in scripture in this second chapter of Philippians, it means “mode of existence.” He exchanged his mode of existence where his creative power was at the nth degree, and he gave it all up to assume the limitations of a man. The same creative power but keyed so low it is as though it were not. And so a mode of existence called man…so in becoming man he isn’t pretending he’s man, he actually exchanged his infinite power to take upon himself this limitation, and now he is man. But housed within himself called in scripture Jesus Christ is the plan of his own redemption. But when he redeems himself in you, he is individualizedasyou. You are individualized in that unfolding plan, and may I tell you, you tend forever towards ever greater and greater individualization. There is no ultimate absorption in deity; you are individualized, but it is God. In other words, all of us, think of the unnumbered billions all completely individualized and still all God, all exercising this enormous creative power that is God. And it starts with the unfolding plan as described and dramatized for us in the gospel. The gospel is the mystery. Man tries to give it an interpretation that you and I would give the interpretation ofaman’s life on Earth.

Now I say this for a purpose…and I think my friend who is here tonight would allow the use of her conversation with me. No one knows her. I’ve known her for twenty-odd years in New York City. She would come all the way from her home in Jersey to my lectures in New York City. She knows this law; she’s made every effort to live by it. We are close friends. She’s now made out here her home. And yet she can be so diverted. I stood startled and amazed after the conversation. She’s here tonight. I ask you not to be embarrassed for no one knows you, no one but the speaker and his wife. She could be so carried away because of some person who claims he is teaching what I am teaching. As she said over the phone, “It’s just like you, Neville. He uses the Bible and shows in the Bible where all the things that are now taking place are in the Bible.” The Bible hasn’t a thing to do with this country, with Russia, with China, with the pope, with any of these things whatsoever. The Bible is Israel’ssacredhistory. And when they use the Bible, God’s word, his plan of salvation, to support a hate campaign…I said the minute you get the hate that’snotthe Bible at all, that’s not the plan of salvation. I tell you from experience God islove! If anyone tries to show me in scripture that I am called upon to hate a certain ism or a certain race of people or a certain this, then turn your back on them. They don’t know, they’re blind, blind…if they’re leaders they’re blind leaders of the blind. But when it comes from one that you love, one that you’ve known for twenty years.

Seeing how I feel this night when I’m closing to make it so clear to you that no one can divert you, that they can’t turn you aside into these blind alleys and throw you into these cesspools (for that’s what they are). God wears every garment. It doesn’t matter what pigment—the whitest skin, the blackest skin, the yellowest skin—all these are garments that God wears. He actually became man. And may I tell you, these garments, not one is progressive from one to the other, they are eternal parts of the eternal structure of the universe. And God actually buried himself in these garments and he’s transforming, individualizing himself. You say “I am,” that’s God. But when you say “I am” you have a peculiar, wonderful feeling of individuality about it. Even if you have…this very night you suffer from amnesia, there’s still that sense of knowing that I am. It is something that’s different from any other presence in the world; that’s your individual being and it’s forever.

Now let us go back and make it clear though I’ve said it time and time again—and don’t think I am repeating it just to repeat it. I repeat it because it’s necessary. You can’t tell this story too often. I’m speaking this night as I have since July of 1959 from experience. I am one with Paul in that statement, “To me this grace has been given.” Grace is God’s gift of himself to man. God gave me himself when he unfolded himself in me. When he resurrected, that’s the beginning of the New Age. I had no concept of what the resurrection was all about. I was taught it, raised as a Christian what it was, and I thought it meant amassrising of all of us at some future time. The resurrection takes place not at the end but during man’s history. While you are seated here, while you sleep this night, while you walk home or walk the street, it could happen then, and you are resurrected. Not the crowd; it’s a unique individual act. That’s the beginning of the New Age. It’s the purpose of the whole Creation, when God completes his wish: Let us make man in our image.

Well now, what is that image? Wait and see. You aren’t going to see it with mortal eye; youcan’tsee it with mortal eye. Strangely enough, when the resurrection does take place, you see the chrysalis out of which you came. It’s this, you see the body, but you the being you don’t see any mirror reflecting you. And when those come to witness this event, come into your world as men, they don’t see you. They can’t see you, because now you are wearing the form of the invisible God. They see the evidence of what has taken place, but they don’t see you, for you are wearing a divine body. It’s not anything that man as man could ever see, so don’t ask for a drawing of it. Don’t ask for a picture of it. You remain invisible to all on this level; something entirely different has taken placeinyou. God became you in the true sense of the word, and in this actyoubecame God. Yet you return and pick up once more that little garment, and you wear it, and you preach it. As you’re told in Ephesians, the grace was given to you to preach, and then to make all men see what is the mystery. This mystery has been hidden for ages in God, but you preach theplanof the mystery. The mystery mustn’t be kept as a secret; it’s simply a truth that is mysterious in character. But in itself, don’t hide it, tell it, tell it to the whole vast world. And those who have heard me, whether they believe me or not that’s irrelevant, it’s entirely up to them. But at least you do hear from one who’s speaking from experience, he’s not theorizing. I am not speculating. I am telling you the story as recorded in scripture, but not as interpreted by the priesthoods of the world…that’s not the story.

So here tonight, for those who want the law, you’ll get it. The law is simple. There are infinite states, but infinite states, good, bad and indifferent, and they’re all part of the eternal structure of the universe. You are a pilgrim moving. You wittingly or unwittingly go into a state. Someone can get into an argument with you and lead you out into a state, a state of horror. They can present the most wonderful pictures and show you and give you reasons for it and lead you into that cesspool; they can do it. I ask you to remember in every state, it’s only a state. You find yourself in it and it’s not love, it’s not what you want, get out of it, no matter how wise he was or she was who suggested your entrance into that state. They’ll do it…they’re doing it morning, noon and night. But I ask you who come here, pick out noble states, yes, states of security, nothing wrong with that, states of love, states of dignity, all these wonderful states, andoccupythem.

How do I know I’m occupying the state? I simply look mentally at my world, and my world that I see mentally should reflect the state I’m occupying. If I don’t see it reflected on the screen of my mind, I’m not in it. I always have a frame of reference, so look at my friends, do they see me as they must see me were I the man that I would like to be? Well then, I’m in the state. But bear in mind, you can occupy a state in the twinkle of an eye and get out of that state just as fast. Well, how do I know that I’m in a state that I would call home? How do I know it? That state to which I most constantly return constitutes my home. Like my apartment here, I will go out and remain out for hours, and I’m going to leave it for months, but it’s a home to which I can return. When I return, the home is waiting for me; it’s home, I’m not putting my things in storage. So that place to which I return most constantly, as I return to my apartment day after day, that constitutes my home.

So the same thing is true of these states. If I find myself returning to a state, it feels comfortable, it feels easy, well, then that’s my home, my spiritual home for a moment. I can remain in it as I remain in the apartment. I’ve been here for six years, I don’t like moving around, but I may come back and close it up. But until I come back it remains open, that is, open to me when I return, so that constitutes my home here in the world of Caesar. So what constitutes my home in these wonderful eternal states?—the state to which I most constantly return.

So do I find myself returning, say, to the state of love, the state of teaching, the state of affluence, or the state of feeling sorry for myself? There are those who actually all day long they delight in feeling sorry for themselves. They go out on a job knowing they aren’t going to be liked, they know it. So when they are not liked they wonder what’s wrong with the people round about me? They’re only reflecting that constant state that I have been occupying. If I don’t get out of that state, no matter where I go in this world I can’t find anything other than what I found when I left the so-called physical thing behind me. I can go from here to the ends of the earth, but I carry the state. I don’t leave a state here; these states are ever present. Right standing here, I can throw myself into two dozen states in the twinkle of an eye, one after the other. By entertaining a thought, occupying it and feeling it I’m in the state. But if I’m doing it just to experiment, all well and good. If I don’t know and I put myself into a state and remain in it, I’m going to bear its fruit. I am that germ that enters the state as a little germ enters the egg, and I fructify it, and then it has to bear its fruit.

So here we have infinite states. You can select the state you want. Your age hasn’t a thing to do with it, your background hasn’t a thing to do with it; you’re only occupying a state. You will bear the most glorious fruit if it’s a lovely state. But even then you don’t own the thing, you’re simply creating them, pushing them out. They’re all yours because you’re in the state; when you leave the state they’re gone. If I said say to Rose, Billy Rose, if I asked him just before he died if he was conscious, “I’ve just seen a hundred and seventy thousand shares of A.T.&T. and they are all marked with your name, who owns them?” he would have said to me, “They’re mine, they’re my 170,000 shares.” Ask him the same question today, did he ever own them? While he was in the state he had it all, but he left it behind him, didn’t take it with him, his $25 million. But he was in a state in the world of Caesar that could grow $25 million. But you and I don’t own anything; we simply are in states.

While we are here we can enjoy the state. So all you do is simply occupy the state. Tonight when you go to bed see that you’re in the right state. For you have the unbroken hours of sleep, where before you go into the deep, to occupy the right state. You fructify it in that interval…because in the course of a day you are diverted so often from one state to another. But you can always tell the home you live in as far as states are concerned by the frequency of occupancy. How often do you go back to it? Do you feel comfortable when you are in it? Well then, that’s the state.

There is a gentleman in this audience tonight…he told me this story Sunday night when we both heard Freedom Barry. Now here was his technique. He desired to dispose of his home. He and his mother live in this home, and they didn’t know where to go…they’ve been in the home all these years. Inwardly he actually put himself into a state, just a state of having really what he had, and yet he disposed of it and all these things, within his mind. Well, it was an impossible thing, you would say, in this world of Caesar. How could you be in a place that you sold? He loved it, it seemed big for the two of them, and then he tells me his story. He sold the house for $65,000 in cash, and then the sale carries this with it: he and his mother will remain in the house rent free until she makes her exit from this world. The present owner will pay all taxes, all upkeep, all insurance and the gardener. Their only expense while living in this place is to pay their personal insurance on furniture, clothing, jewelry, and so on. $65,000 in cash and still living in the same home with an agreement to remain there to the end of his mother’s life, rent free. Everything is possible in God’s world. But the average person would have said that couldn’t have happened, therefore, I wouldn’t occupy such a stupid state…I am putting God to the extreme test. We don’t believe that all things are possible to God.

So I say to everyone here, don’t put any limitations on the power in you, though he sleeps. For Christ in you is sound asleep until the very end when he begins to awake. The signs set up in the very beginning are all contained within him as the plan of deliverance, the plan of salvation. Let me quickly give you this plan. I’ve told it to you time and again, but do listen to it carefully; it’s going to happen to you. The only way that that story of the gospel will unfold is in this way, there is no other way. You will find yourself at the end of the Book of Luke, and now he’s resurrected, and he turns to those who followed him and he said, you are witnesses, you haven’t yet received it but you are witnesses. In other words, he’s telling that he has dramatized every act of salvation. You are witnesses to that. Now I send the Promise of the Father upon you. I send the promise of the Father upon you, but wait in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke24:49). Now he departs…the end of his physical presence…wait until you are clothed with the power from on high.

Now, what Promise of the Father is he going to send? It is said of the speaker all the promises of God have their yes in him. He doesn’t pick out one and say I’m going to send that or send this, I’m going to send the Promise of the Father. The spokesman was the one who gave yes to all the promises, so he’s sending himself. And when he comes, he should come again. When he comes again, he comes in an entirely different way. He came telling a story; now he comes unfolding himselfin youto whom he told the story. His first act is the resurrection. When it’s going to take place—you turn the pages over because Luke and Acts are one book—so you turn over from Luke into Acts, and here you find these words, “And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting” (2:2). That’s exactly how it happens.

Suddenly, you don’t expect it, there’s a wind that is unearthly. You can’t describe that wind. This mighty wind comes upon you…you know it’s a wind…that’s all you entertain. Where is this cyclone coming from? Where is the origin of this hurricane? You look over from this little chrysalis out of which you’ve just emerged and you hear the wind, look back, and the witnesses are there to witness now the great event. The wind starts and awakens you; the awakening is your resurrection. “Awake, you sleeper, and rise from the dead” (Eph.5:14) and suddenly you begin to awake. Even while you are waking, through habit you only think in terms of one kind of waking and that is the kind of waking that you’ve experienced over the years that you’ve lived here, to discover it isn’t that kind of waking at all. The wind possesses you, your whole head is vibrating…it’s a tone…and all of a sudden you are awake. But you aren’t on your bed, you aren’t where you thought you should be, and here you are in your skull. Your skull is the sepulcher whereyouhave been placed, where you have been placed as dead. And God himself entered that death’s door with you, and he laid down in the skull with you and shared with you your visions through the long, long journey until you awake. When you awake, you see the linen clothes lying…this [pointing to body] that the females had woven. This was woven by a woman. And so here, this is there and you come out of the sepulcher, and no one knows how you got out. You are invisible, immortal, wearing now the divine body that no mortal eye can see.

Then comes on the heels of this, the sign of your birth into an entirely different world; the sign being the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then comes the only way you will know now that you really are God who became you. There’s no way in eternity that you will ever know it save in this one way: “If the son makes you free, you are free indeed” (Jn.8:36). But theSonhas to set you free. Set who free?—set the Father free. For the Promise is made, that the man who kills the enemy of Israel, his father will be set free. So all of a sudden the Son comes and the Son calls you “Father” and you are set free. Then you really know what the temple is—you thought it was something on the outside, and all of sudden you are split, your whole body is split from top to bottom, every little segment of the spine, that backbone is split. And here you are, you’re parted, as told in scripture: one went east, one went west, one moved north and south. The whole thing is split like a valley, and then at the very base of that, the blood of God. You look at it, it isn’t red, it’s gold, living, pulsing light; and you say within yourself I know it is myself. You also know it’s your Creator and your Redeemer; therefore, if it is myself and yet my Creator, then I am myself my own creation. For in becoming me there aren’t two anymore. He became me that I may become as he is. In becoming him I am the very being, so I am my own Creator and my own Redeemer. Then you ascend like a serpent; and you know the great mystery then of he who came out and descended into the drama is the same one who goes up. And he ascends as he descended…same wonderful river.

Then the whole thing is sealed at the end and that is sealed with the bodily presence of a dove who descends upon you. And you look up…before he descends he floats and hovers above you. There is no circumference; there’s a transparency that has no limit, there’s no circumference, infinite. You look into it, and suddenly you look up and you put out your hand, why I don’t know. I raised my hand this way and he descended and lit here [pointing to his left index finger], brought him to my face and he smothered me all over my face, kissing, kissing all over my head. Then you go back and read the ancient scripture: “And he put his hand up and the dove took the finger of his hand and he brought him into the ark”

(Gen.8:9). Now you know who the ark is. That’s exactly what you do. So man becomes the ark and the ark contains the whole of creation. There is nothing left outside of the ark, so you bring him right in, and he smothers you. The whole thing unfolds in a matter of three and a half years, and then it’s done. Then you go and you tell it, tell it to anyone. Even if they reject it, as many will, even if they forget it in the interval and still see it in some strange earthly picture, a little child born of a woman as you and I were. That’s not Christ. I’m speaking of the Cosmic Christ who is actually in every man and who awakens in every man.

So,thatyou remember. Try to remember…at least if you think of this platform, think of the one who stands on it for a moment, his words will come back. If you find yourself falling into some ditch that is horrible, think of him and his words will come back and pull you out of it. He’ll pull you out, because you’ll remember the plan of salvation as I myself have experienced it and then you’ll be encouraged to go on; for youmustexperience this salvation. Then “the end” is upon you and you never return to this world. You’ve completed your journey and God’s primal wish: “let us make him in my image” has been completed. You are now in the image and you are the very being. Well, who is the image of God? We’re told Christ is the image of the invisible God, he is the likeness of the invisible God, therefore, who are you then? And what did he say? “I and my Father whom you call God are one. Only I know my Father and ye know not your God” (John 10:30). So, who are you then? You are one with God;youareGod. Then you return to the mode of existence that was God’s by divine right before he exchanged it and took upon himself this. But in doing this, he individualized himself as you and made you one with himself with the same creative power.

Now, we can have more time tonight for questions. Let us go into the Silence.