The Mystery of Christmas

Here we are facing one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith, Christmas. The world interprets it as secular history, that this event took place where this little boy was born in some supernatural manner. The whole vast world heard that story and they continue to believe it. That is not the story of Christmas.

The Bible is sacred history and sacred history is a process of selection and exclusion. It begins with the story of Abraham. And he was selected. We are told, in Abraham all the nations were to be blessed. There was no exclusion there, only selection. Then we move from this first choice to a chosen people—which now excludes all others, the whole vast world called the heathen—the Christian. Then we find in this chosen people that only the remnant will be saved, which now excludes the majority of Israel. Then we find in this remnant a final reduction to one, Jesus Christ, who fulfills the divine will. When you hear the story you think of some one person 2,000 years ago. That is not Jesus Christ. Paul tells us in his wonderful letter to the Colossians, speaking of this mystery: “A mystery that has been hidden for ages and generations and only now made manifest…this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:26). So here came the reduction all to you.

Now Christ in you is the only one that is saved and that Christ in you is your very self. When you say “I am” that’s Christ; your own wonderful human Imagination that’s Christ. You will find the story of Jesus Christ unfolding within you after you reach that point where now you reverse the whole process and no more exclusion. You start where you are born within yourself, and you move from Jerusalem above to all Samaria, all Judea, all the ends of the world, including now everyone. So this complete reversal from exclusion to inclusion… and everyone eventually is saved through Jesus Christ in us.

So this is the story of Christmas. It hasn’t a thing to do with the story as the world has heard it and continues to hear it. God himself came and comes into human history in the person of Jesus Christ in us; and this Jesus Christ that is in us is the one that is resurrected, the one that is born from above, the one that discovers himself as God the Father. So God came, it’s not another; when you speak of Jesus Christ, that’s God himself. Yes, in the drama he’s revealed as the Son…God in action is the Son…but when he returns to himself, he is God the Father. And that comes after this complete exclusiveness right down to one being. From all, into a small minority, into a smaller, into one; for there’s “only one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of us all” and that is Jesus Christ in us.

Now, the Bible as it’s presented to us, no one makes a claim that it’s chronologically exact. Here we read in the story of Luke, and Luke makes a statement, “In as much as many have undertaken to assemble a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things accurately, to make an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed” (Luke 1:1-4). He makes no claim that his presentation of the story is chronologically exact. He does imply that his is a better arrangement of the source material. Now, when you think of this story written in almost the end of the 1st Century, long after the so-called events took place, he has to depend either on his own experience or the eye-witnesses. And they are getting smaller and smaller, for people vanish from this world; and those who actually experienced it and those who heard of the experiences depart this world of Caesar…so fewer and fewer and still fewer remain.

So he gathers the information and now he writes a story and tells it in the most beautiful form, the story of Luke as he tells it in Luke-Acts. Well, they were one book at a time, now they divide into two; but they formed one book, almost a quarter of the New Testament. So in this story, he starts with the birth. I know from experience the true story starts with the resurrection. I know from my own personal experience, having experienced it, the drama begins with the resurrection, where man finds himself awakening within himself in that area of the body known as the skull. The Hebrew word is Golgotha, and in the four gospels each gospel mentions the skull where he was crucified and where he was buried. So you find yourself awakening in the skull. Following that, the same night, you come out and you are born from above. As we are told in scripture, it must take place in you: “You must be born from above, for unless you are born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

So here, you can’t return. Well, who is being born? It is God himself expanding beyond what he was. There’s no other…there’s only God in the world. When you go back, you are the God who came down, for no one ascends but he who first descended. You and I are the gods, the Elohim that came down and slowly entered into this state called “the skull of man.” And we heard our own names but didn’t even recognize it when I said “I am.” Well, I’m aware of being…that’s God. But I am limited; I’ve reached the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity. And now I turn around when I am born from above, after being resurrected. Then comes the unfolding picture.

Now he speaks of a mystery and he speaks of a glory: “Christ in you.” Christ in us is this fantastic glory…that I do know from experience. Rational analysis cannot fathom it. You can sit down and read scripture from now ’til the ends of time and you will not analyze it. You read it, but it comes through revelation and only through revelation. I tell you of this glorious body within you that comes after the suffering. As Paul brings out in his letter to the Romans,“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). That body of glory is a reality that man cannot fathom. It’s a true, true body; it’s a body of light, it’s a body of power.Thirteen years before I was resurrected, thirteen years before I was born from above, I experienced for one night this glorious body. It’s a body of light, it’s self-luminous. You don’t need the sun, you don’t need the moon, you don’t need the stars, you don’t need anything for luminosity…you are light. And you don’t walk, you glide if you want to glide. You simply move and you’re clothed in a body of light and air…that’s the best I can describe it. It’s powerful, a body of power, and you are clothed in this body of power. That is your immortal, eternal body. This is the glory of which Paul speaks. So you can’t compare the sufferings of the present time with this glory that is to be revealed in us.

Well, thirteen years before, back in 1946, this thing happened to me. I was sailing through the Caribbean into Mobile, Alabama, and while I was at sea this thing happened. Here I am lifted up with this heavenly chorus singing, calling me by name: “Neville is risen. Neville is risen” and this lovely choral group singing my name. How they could take just one name and do with it what they did, I in this rational state could never explain…I do not know. I only know it happened and I experienced it. When I found myself clothed in this glorious body of power then I glided past an infinite sea of human imperfection, and as I came by everyone was made perfect. They were made perfect with the perfection that was springing within me…I was perfect. That was my perfect immortal body. I could not live in a world of any imperfection, and wherever I would go everything that was previously imperfect was molded into perfection in harmony with the perfection that was simply springing within me, for my body was perfect. So, as you are told, “We must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mat. 5:48). Yet, at that moment, I knew nothing of who the Father was. Thirteen years later I made the discovery. So as we are told in scripture, “No man has ever seen God. He who is in the bosom of the Father”—now this is the literal translation of this phrase, ‘God’s only begotten’—“he has made him known” (John 1:18).

Well now, you read scripture from Genesis to Revelation and find one person in that book other than David who is called “God’s only begotten.” When you read it in the New Testament, it’s a quote from the 2nd Psalm. I’m telling from my own experience God’s only begotten is David. Well now, who is David? He is called the eternal youth in scripture. The word Olam is translated “eternity, the world, the stripling, the youth, the young man.” Now who is David? To understand who David is, let us now turn to that 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes, the 11th verse, “He has put eternity into man’s mind yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Only in the end will man know what was put into his mind. The word translated “eternity” is Olam. What is the definition that you will use for Olam? I’ve just given you all the definitions. It’s defined as “the world”; the King James uses the word “worlds”; the Revised Standard Version uses the word “eternity.” And in the Book of Samuel when he stands before the king he uses three expressions, “Whose son is that stripling? Whose son is that youth?” and now he asks the man himself, “Whose son are you, young man?” (1 Sam. 17:56). So, “young man” is Olam, “stripling” is Olam, “youth” is Olam, and Olam is “eternity.”

So what did he put into the mind of man? Now, to understand it you must go back to the Hebrew mind and to the Hebrew thought: History consists of all the generations of men and their experiences fused into a single grand whole, and this concentrated time into which they’re all fused and from which all generations spring is called “Olam.” All right, is it the youth, is it the stripling, is it the young man, is it eternity? It is all of them.When man has gone to the very end of the road, but the very end, an explosion takes place within him and what was hidden within him reveals him to himself. Who comes out?—the youth. Your head explodes, a complete explosion takes place, and standing before you when the dust settles is this eternal youth and he is David. There is no doubt in your mind, no uncertainty as to who it is that you are looking at, and you know who he is and you know the relationship between the two of you. So, “No man has ever seen God. He who is in the bosom of the Father (God’s only begotten) he has made him known.” So when it explodes and he stands before you, then you know who you are: You are God the Father. You came down here for a definite purpose, to contract yourself to the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity; that then you would expand and break it, and then, as you break it, you start expanding beyond what you were when you decided on this venture. There is no limit to expansion, no limit to translucency; there is a limit to contraction and the skull of man, that rock is the limit of contraction.

So Luke in writing the story makes no claim that his recording is chronologically true, but he does tell it as the human mind could accept it so he starts off with the birth. You start off with the resurrection, and the resurrection and birth are two sides of the same coin…it happens the same night…but the resurrection comes first. You awake from a long, long sleep. Well, who was the sleeper?—I am. Well, who is I AM?—God. But you didn’t know it yet. You know that I am awake from a long, long sleep, and you come out, and all the things around you are told in scripture. Everything surrounding the birth is right before you, the witnesses and the infant …which is only a sign of your birth, for God is born. He is born after having contracted himself, and now he comes out. After that comes the unfolding picture, these four mighty acts of God, supernatural acts, not seen by any mortal eye but experienced by the individual. That one who is now raised is one with the exalted Christ, the same being. But he cannot while he still wears this garment of flesh and blood become fully aware of his body of glory.

This body of glory cannot become actual or at least it is not fully realized in us while we still are clothed in bodies that die, bodies of flesh and blood. But you may have the experience that I had thirteen years prior to it. For I had it thirteen years prior to the resurrection and birth…I did have the experience of wearing this glorious immortal body. A body that as it walks by, you do nothing, I didn’t raise one finger to change one person. They were blind, they were lame, they were halt, they were shrunken, arms were missing, legs missing, and everything came back and molded itself in perfect form. There was no missing eye when I came by, no missing hand; everything came out like out of some great reservoir. Arms were remolded, eyes were remolded, feet remolded and everything was made perfect because I, the perfect, walked by. So you’ll find yourself in a perfect world because you are perfect. You return to that perfection that was yours before you emptied yourself and came down into this limited manner called man.

So now, is it really David? Well, I tell you from my own personal experience it is David. Let us turn to the 13th chapter of Acts, “I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will. From this man’s posterity God has brought forth for Israel a savior, Jesus, as he promised” (verses 22, 23). He brought forth Jesus…from this man’s posterity he brought forth Jesus, a savior. Well, scripture only speaks of one savior in the world: That savior is the Lord God Jehovah. There aren’t two saviors. So who did he bring forth?—Jesus. They use the word “Jesus,” not Christ. Christ is Messiah. Jesus is another name for Jehovah and it means “Jehovah saves.” So he brings forth Jesus as promised; he brings forth himself. It is God who is rising.

Now he brings it forth from David. Well then, who is David? He promises us in 2nd Samuel, the 7th chapter, “I will raise up your son after you, who will come forth from your body. I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (verse 12). I’m going to raise up…well now, who then is this David? David is the flower, the fulfillment of all the things that you have ever done, for you have played every part in the world. You’ve played the part of the rich man and the poor man, the man that was known and the man that was unknown, the man that was the hero and the man that was the coward. Don’t think for one second you have avoided one. You’ve played the part of the blind man and the man with perfect vision. If you think you’ve avoided it, may I tell you I would be sorry for anyone in this small audience tonight who has so far avoided it because you’ve got to play it. You’ll play every part in the world, so in the end you will say, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”…for they’re playing all the parts.

After you have played every part, then comes the one who symbolizes all the parts, and that is David. You read his story. It’s nothing to brag about. He played all the parts, but he was that being played by one within him. And he came forth from the being; and he who came forth as son becomes his Father. So the Father takes all these parts upon himself and plays them. He is the central actor, he is the star…but unseen. No one sees him. I don’t see you; I see the mask that you wear but I don’t see you. You are God the Father and no man has ever seen God the Father. He who is in the bosom of the Father, God’s only begotten, he has made him known (John 1:18). And only when David stands before you and you know he’s your son do you know that you are God the Father. The glory that is yours to which you are returning is hidden from the whole vast world. Hidden even from you save in that one moment when you had the experience of the glorious body; but hidden even from you while you still wear a garment of flesh and blood.

So this is the mystery of Christmas. It hasn’t a thing to do with the story as will be recited in a couple of weeks and told to hundreds of millions of people. But maybe they’re not yet ready to hear it in its true form, that God actually became man that man may become God. He came right down into human form and he’s now sound asleep in all who are not awake, but asleep and dreaming this dream of life. One day, he will awake in the individual and that individual in whom he awakes will know it can’t be just my own being, it has to be shared with everyone in the world. Because if it’s not shared with all, then take it from me now and let it be all oblivion…that I who have an earthly mother that I love, even though she’s gone from this sphere and a father and a brother gone, and a nephew gone, and many friends gone, that they would not have the experience to discover themselves as God the Father, and that I who have had it…I don’t want it alone. We are the gods who came down, we are the Elohim. We must all return! So beginning at Jerusalem in whom it happened, he spreads it to Samaria, to all Judea, to all the ends of the earth, and everyone is taken in as it was in the beginning. In Abraham all the nations were to be blessed. Then comes the exclusion, and then in the chosen people only the faithful remnant, and then in the faithful remnant a further reduction to one, one who will do the divine will, all the divine will. What was the divine will?—to express scripture. I have come only to fulfill the Word of God and the Word of God is scripture. So he said they all wrote about me: “In the volume of the book it is all about me” (Heb. 10:7).

He begins his ministry by quoting scripture, that “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, he has anointed me”…that’s the 61st chapter of Isaiah. Well, in Isaiah he started by quoting Isaiah and the 43rd chapter of Isaiah makes the statement, “I, I am the Lord…and besides me there is no savior” (verse 11). This is the Lord God Jehovah whose name is I AM. So if he brought forth a savior Jesus then who is Jesus but the Lord God Jehovah. Where did he come forth?—he came out of David. As we are told, “I will raise up your son after you who will come forth from your body” (2 Sam. 7:12), and this one is Jesus, the Lord God. Well, therefore David is not a little man who lived 1,000 B.C.; David is the result of the journey and man fulfilling all the parts, playing every part. Have to start off with twelve parts, twelve major characters, and then you multiply them to 144, then you multiply that to 144,000. These multiples of twelve, these are modifications of the major twelve…the twelve sons of Israel, the twelve sons of Jacob. So these are the twelve eternal characters; you’ve played them and then you modify them. All of these are modifications of the twelve. And in the end, you, the central being, you are Jesus Christ. The actual being the whole vast world of Christians worships, you are Jesus Christ: “Christ in you is the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

So he said, “I tell you a mystery, a mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest.” And what’s the mystery? “This is the mystery, Christ in you the hope of glory.” Were he not in you, how could he rise? Were he not in you now, then he has not descended and then you couldn’t breathe, for he is life. You’d have no life, you’d have no consciousness, for his life is the light of the world, the consciousness of the world. So in everyone Christ is buried and in everyone Christ…and there aren’t a bunch of little Christs running around. So when you are raised you are one with the exalted Christ, not another… without loss of identity. No loss of identity…I’ll know you, I’ll know you in eternity. But remember, I knew you before the world was, and then we came down for a divine purpose, and we are returning to where we were but now exalted beyond what we were, a constant expansion by this wonderful adventure into the world of death. For this is the world of death were everything dies.

So here, when I read his letters…bear in mind Paul’s letters preceded the gospels by at least thirty years and this body of letters, thirteen of them, formed the first church. They were actually accepted and taught through all the cities of the Near East long before it was collected into the form of a story. It should be told in the form of a story for “Truth embodied in a tale shall enter in at lowly doors.” If it’s not embodied in a tale then it’s lost. So his letters would have been lost if they were not collected and then told in the form of a story where a little boy was born. But he doesn’t tell that story. You can read all of his letters, there are thirteen, and he never mentions that. His closest to it is “when it pleased God to reveal his Son in me.” Now he doesn’t know who the Son is. “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, then I conferred not with flesh and blood” (Gal. 1:16). That’s as close as he comes to mentioning anything of that nature, but he doesn’t tell you who that Son is. I tell you who that Son is, that Son is David. This eternal Son who reveals God to himself is David, the essence of the journey. So when you get to the end, here is David, and it comes with an explosion, a real explosion. You think your whole head is coming off. This whole thing explodes and when the whole thing settles, here standing before you is this eternal youth. You can’t describe his beauty. I mean such beauty! I’ve seen beautiful men, beautiful young men and young girls, but nothing in this world of flesh and blood compares to this that stands before you. And here, you feast upon the beauty of your Son. For he is your Son and only he could tell you that you are God the Father in fulfillment of scripture…therefore, he only comes to fulfill scripture. So Christ in you is God the Father and he’s come to fulfill his own Word. He is the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). So the scripture must be fulfilled by God, and God comes to fulfill the entire scripture. He fulfills it in you in a series of supernatural events. The most glorious things happen in you.

So this is the story that will now be told and re-enacted in a way that it didn’t take place. It did not happen that way, so they’re going to tell it and think they are re-enacting it. It’s not so at all. But I tell you, you are Jesus Christ, you are the Lord, you are God the Father, and one day you will know it. No man looking at you would ever know it. You will say, “Well, after all, I’m a lady, how can I be God the Father?” I tell you, regardless of your sex on earth…for “In Christ there is no male or female, there is no bond or free, there is no Greek or Jew…but one” (Gal.3:28). So when you know who you really are, you are above the organization of sex.

And yet, you are God the Father. For he is begotten of God…he has no mother. You are the Father who brought him forth by the part you played in this world. Then the whole vision will lift and you will see what you have done. Having seen all the things you did…and they are just as horrible as that which David did. You read the story of David. He took…with all the women that he had…he had a harem and yet he fell in love with Bathsheba. She was the only heifer, the only ewe of Uriah. He took Uriah and put him into the front line and sent him into battle knowing he would be killed so that he would get Bathsheba. Then the Lord’s prophet Nathan tells him the story and then allows him to pass judgment on a man that would do that. Nathan so beautifully told it that he didn’t realize he was passing judgment on himself. So he passed judgment on any man, who having all the heifers and all the ewes that one could ever want, would take a man’s heifer and the only one that he had and sleep with that heifer. Then he passed judgment on himself.

So here is the story of David, and everyone has played that story. I have played the part of the deceiver and the part of the one deceived; the part of the rich man, the part of the poor; the part of the blind, the part of the perfect sight. Everything in this world you can think of I have played it. And then suddenly, when the whole thing is over, the memory returns of the play.The play was pre-determined, everything was pre-determined, and yet we were free in this world to choose, to decide, to act; and then having acted, allowing the consequences to take over and mold another situation to confront me forcing me to make another decision; and another act and then consequences would take over…and I go through life that way until the very end. When the very end is upon us, no one knows when it comes. May I tell you, it comes suddenly like a thief in the night. And no one knows. So don’t think for one moment that you can tell by what is happening in your world that you know…you don’t know. It happens so suddenly, you could be standing at a bar when it happens, you could be in a brothel when it happens. It doesn’t have to be in a church or living in some so-called holy place, it could happen any moment of time. When it happens, the same drama will unfold within you. There’s only one way.

I received a letter yesterday from New York City, fourteen pages. This lady is still trying to persuade me as she has throughout the years that there are numberless ways to God. “There is not just the one way you teach, Neville, and I’m going to prove it.” Well, she’s going to try to prove it. She’s the one who came to my meetings years ago in this city and applied what she heard about the law and married a fabulously wealthy man many years her senior…bore him two sons. She has all the money in the world that it takes, so that money is no problem with her at all…as it was when she first came. So she’s proven the law that I teach, but she wants to disprove the Promise that I teach. Wrote me fourteen pages one after the other, all confusion, quoting Buddha, quoting this, quoting the other. In some peculiar way she has a strange feeling against Christianity, why I do not know. So to use the word offends her and so in her presence I always speak of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, when you tell them that you have experienced it…and there aren’t two Christs in the world, there’s only one Christ. When I tell her it’s in you: Christ in you is the only hope of your glory, and one day what is said of him in scripture you’re going to experience in yourself, and therefore you will know you are Jesus Christ. He tells you, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” But they don’t know they have seen the Father…because Phillip didn’t know it. So Phillip saw the Father and didn’t recognize him, because no one can actually know the Father but the Son; and when the Son reveals the Father, well then, the Father knows that he is the Father. But no one calling you Father could make you and persuade you that you are Father; it takes the Son to do it. When he comes, I can’t tell you the thrill when he comes, but it’s an explosion. He’s buried within you.

So when you read the 2nd Psalm, begin with the 6th verse and go through to the 9th verse, and see how, first of all, he takes his king and sets his king on Zion. Well, this is Zion, this is Jerusalem, this is Bethlehem, this whole area, this is where I am buried and this is where I rose. The whole drama is taking place in the skull of man; so this is the Zion spoken of in scripture, the city of David. When David was buried in the city of David he was buried here, for it was here that I exploded. I didn’t explode in my belly, I didn’t explode in any part of my body but it was just here, the skull. And the whole thing exploded. After this vibration reached the limit of intensity, it exploded, and here comes David.

This innate knowledge… you know him the minute you’re looking at him that this is David. You don’t have to ask any questions…here is your eternal Son looking at you. He is the flower of all that you have done; one who did all your will, for you are the Father. So now “I have found in David the son of Jesse”—and the word Jesse means “I AM,” so I have found in David, the son of myself, I AM—“a man after my heart who will do all my will. And from his posterity I will raise up for Israel a savior, Jesus, as I promised” (Acts 13:22). Well, Jesus and Jehovah are the same, so I will simply raise up myself. I will come out, come forth from that body that I wore playing all the parts. For it was David that I really wore, but it took on the form of Neville, took on the form of Grace, the form of Ray, the form of this, and all of these were masks that I wore…but it was David who did my will. He only fulfilled my will.

So I couldn’t condemn him in the end for sending Uriah to be killed. That’s an experience I had to experience that I may forgive anyone who did a similar act. If God had not played all the parts, he couldn’t forgive all the parts, so in the end he forgives everyone. The thief…he forgives the thief. Why? He played it. He forgives the murderer. Why? He played it. He played every part in the world, that’s why in the end he forgives all and can say “It is finished.” And when it’s finished, well then, the drama unfolds within him…but not until the end. Then he takes off this garment and he’s clothed in his immortal body of glory. And that body, well, you don’t need things. That is the power that creates anything in the world. So instead of inheriting land, inheriting money, inheriting things, you inherit God. “I am your inheritance. Give them nothing…I am their inheritance” that’s what we are told (Ezek. 44:28). So you inherit the immortal body. With this body, and you the occupant who is God, you create anything you want, and by lack of attention let it vanish. So you will keep it alive as long as you are attentive to it.

So this is the mystery of Christmas. It is not told in either gospel…there are four gospels. It is not told in its chronological exactitude. It’s told only because it had to be put into the form of a tale to be kept alive. For, the mere letters would not have kept it alive, so it was necessary to put a story behind the letters. These thirteen letters form the base, because all the gospels came after the thirteen letters which came first. Galatians, they claim, is the first or maybe 1st Thessalonians, but they came together practically and then they spread over a period of time. Then the gospels came with Mark first at least thirty years later. Some put the Book of John even in the 2nd Century, some scholars do…as late as the first part of the 2nd Century. So here we find these stories told…and John is the most advanced, the profoundest of all the stories…but that does not include the birth. He tells you it’s a must but doesn’t explain how it takes place. He says, “You must be born from above, for unless you are born from above you cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). So he states that it must take place and that you must ascend like a serpent, these things he tells you, but he does not explain it as Luke did. Luke tells the most glorious story concerning the birth (2:11-13).

You and I will listen to the music on Christmas morning. I know I will. In fact, every moment I can hear it now. I just love that music, so I put on my record player and listen to all the lovely Christmas music. I never tire of it. But I know that all these lovely Christmas hymns concerning this are not true, yet I love it. I can rejoice with it and yet I know it is not the way it happened. It happens in the most dramatic way all within you, all within Bethlehem, and this [skull] is Bethlehem, all within the city of David. Every act takes place there until that final one where you are split, and then you ascend but you ascend into the city of David. And then the last one, well then, that’s the glorious descent of the Holy Spirit, sealing the work—“this with whom I am very pleased,” for the work is done now.

Now you’re clothed with almighty power. As the dove descends and you accept the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, now you’re clothed with infinite power. Yet you do not exercise it in this world; it does not belong to this world. So you can say as you say in scripture, I am not of this world. I am in it but I am not of it. I came and will continue to come into human history in the form, in the person of Jesus Christ…but I am not of this world. So the power that is mine I will exercise in that other world to which I go. This higher life on which I will enter, taking off this garment, there I will exercise the power but not here.There’s no reason to do anything here other than simply live as you do in the world of Caesar, and suffer if you must suffer. Do all the things that you’re called upon to do. But do not for one moment compare it to the glory that is to be revealed in you.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: (inaudible)

A: Well, I can only tell you what happened to me. I can only tell you that it conforms to what is foretold in scripture. Everything that has happened to me was foretold in the Old Testament. The New Testament is only the fulfillment of the Old, but it is not understood until it’s been revealed through an actual experience. If others have had it and it differs, perfectly all right. There are ladies and gentlemen right here who have had the experiences and I could call these things the birth. There are some who have not remembered…one lady in that vision of passing the Pt. Conception. I knew from her experience that it had happened and soon thereafter she had the experience…but it came in her way differently.

There’s one gentleman here I know he has had it, but he hasn’t remembered. I have asked him on two or three occasions to go back and read the 87th Psalm, for he questioned the Ancient of Days in his vision concerning his true birth. He was thinking of it in the secular world, and the Ancient of Days was thinking of it in terms of his spiritual birth, and used the past tense. Both used the past tense, but he used it on the secular level and the Ancient of Days used it on the spiritual level, and it was in conflict.My birthday on the secular level is the 19th day of February, 1905, but on the spiritual level it’s the 20th day of July, 1959. So, which birthday do you mean if you say “When were you born?” Someone who is interested in astrology will say when were you born?

This Sunday morning as I was waking, I explained to this couple my going to a certain room which they occupied. I mistook it, and they explained that it was quite natural that I should, for the simple reason it was for such use but the crush was so great they converted it for a temporary reason for a guest who needed a room. So I walked into a place believing it to be a men’s restroom. Then I saw clothes, I saw grips and all these things. Then I saw a lady coming in. I explained I came in here believing it to be what it formerly was and that I’d been here many a time…it was the old Plaza Hotel in New York City…so she accepted my explanation. Then I found her in the lobby and she knew me by name. She said, “You know, Neville, it’s perfectly all right that you did what you did.” Then she said, “Meet my husband.” So I met the husband and I explained to him and he understood and thought, “Well now, anyone would make that mistake for it was only this past weekend because there’s a need of rooms for so many tourists that they converted it.” Then a man came by and he said to me, “What’s your birthday?” I said, here goes one of those nuts, but I didn’t express it, but I entertained the thought “here goes a nut, he wants my birthday.” Then he stuck his hand out. Well, I think I’m civil enough to take a hand whether I knew him or not, and so I took his hand. He said to me, “You shall mourn before six days of this week have passed.” That was Sunday morning, “You shall mourn before six days of this week have passed.”

Then I woke and came up, coming through from great heights, doing what I do every night, to encounter this little interruption before you return to the consciousness of this level. So he is going to tell me something concerning the world of Caesar that I will mourn before six days of this week have passed. Well, maybe I will, it doesn’t matter. It still does not convince me of the truth of astrology or any of his nonsense that he had, for he is no prophet. Prophecy is over. The Old Testament is completed, it’s finished, it’s God’s world. What we call prophecy here is no prophecy, or fortune telling…hasn’t a thing to do with it. Tell me how you think and I’ll tell you without looking at anything. Tell me what you really entertain in thoughts, your fears, your hopes, your convictions, and I’ll prophecy for you. Tell me that you really believe that you are the lady you want to be, so that you stop wanting it because you walk as though you were, and I’ll tell you you’re walking right straight towards it. I don’t need your chart to tell you that. But give me any chart, and I talk to you and you are in conflict with what they say it means, you are not going to arrive there at all. So your deep convictions are taking you towards their fulfillment. We are becoming moment by moment by moment all that we convince ourselves that we are.

So this man walked by…and I can see him right now, with sort of reddish hair, a man in his fifties…he said, “When were you born?” and I entertained the thought but I didn’t express it, but the thought entertained was “Aw, you nut.” There is a nut, meeting in the public hallway in the Plaza Hotel and he asks me when I’m born. I could have said I was born the 20th day of July, 1959. That would have thrown him. Here’s a man sixty-three years old and I’m telling him I’m born in 1959? Now that would really upset him and yet that is more my birth than the birth in 1905; that’s my immortal birth. “And this one was born here in Zion and that one was born there in Zion and that one was born here in Zion”…and all that’s in the 87th Psalm…all born in Zion. Now, when were you born? “Well, in the world of Caesar, if I use his calendar, it was the 20th day of July, 1959.” “You were born then? Why, you look much older than that.” “No, I was born then.” Now wouldn’t that upset people! That’s really what I should have told him.

Good night.