The Primal State

Tonight’s subject is “The Primal State.” We read in the works of Shakespeare, “It has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were.” For the primal state with us is “Let us make man in our image.” That’s the very first wish recorded in scripture. And we are told that he who began this work in us will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6); that no power in the world will stop it. That was his wish and he will complete it.

Now, in the Book of Ephesians, the first chapter of Ephesians, we read the words, “In Christ, he chose us before the foundation of the world”…that you and I were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Christ is the power and the wisdom of God, so by his wisdom and by his power we were chosen. Now he tells us why: To be full of love. These are the words, the 1st chapter, the 4th and 5th verses: To be full of love; God being love, to be full of God. He is filling us with himself until we overflow with God. Then we are told “He destined us” and then it’s explained why he destined us. For this, we’re told, such was his will and his pleasure that we may be accepted as his sons. For the whole purpose, the whole vast world was brought forth as a theater wherein God and God alone might develop beings fit for his sons.So let no one scare you about not being saved, because you choose yourself. Let no one tell you that you are not being brought out just as God, for it is all God doing it. He began the good work in us and God will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. And no one can be lost, but no one.Our sonship is not earned, it is all grace; and our fitness is the consequence not the condition of his choice. And so, everyone in the world because they can’t earn it, everyone is given it, but everyone.

Now, let me share with you a letter that came to me last Tuesday. This lady writes that she was dreaming and she knew she was dreaming, and in the dream she remembered this teaching and said to herself, “Neville tells us that if I know that I am dreaming and decide to awake in it I could; and awake right in the dream and prove to my own satisfaction that a dream is not what the world thinks it is. If I awake in it, it takes on objectivity and becomes just as real to me, the dreamer, as the world is to those who think they are awake. So I will awake in it. Well, I know it was a dream and I did what you told us to do. So I sat at a desk, and I discovered that the desk was joined to the chair, one piece of furniture. I realized that this enormous hall was the hall in some institution of higher learning. When I made my decision, I awoke in my dream. The professor was giving a lecture. There weren’t very many people present, but he was talking to the few who were present in this very large hall. I noticed to my right a stairway led from the upper floor. At the base of the stairway there was a group of young men, all talking. So I sat at the desk, and two of them detached themselves from the little group and came over to where my desk was and got on both sides of me and locked me in. Well, here the desk was attached to the chair, and the only exit for me would be to the sides, and they stood at my sides.

“Then one shouted to the crowd, that is, the group gathered at the stairway, ‘Here is another one of them’ said this youth to the others over there. ‘Here is another one of them.’ Seven left the little gathering and came over and got in front of me, implying that I was a visitor, and I was not the first visitor from a very strange land…that they were seeing something, and I was one of them. I realized from their attitude towards me that I should get out of there. Again, I remembered your teaching, that if I could feel a bed under me and a pillow under my head I would depart from this area. Quickly as I imagined I was on a bed and a pillow under my head, I felt myself dissolve from this chair and felt myself on my bed, leaving an empty chair for the nine of them to observe. So they all thought they saw someone who was a visitor from some other world or some other planet, as far as they’re concerned, and they shouted to the crowd, ‘Here is another one of them.’”

Now, that same technique you use to put yourself into anything you want in this world. You don’t have to use it only to return to this world from another place; you use it here to put yourself from one state into another state in this world. You take the state of poverty…now what, instead of a bed and a pillow, on what would you rest if now you were not poor? On what would you rest if now you were gainfully employed? On what would you now rest…and you use the same technique to move from one state here into another state here. You don’t have to use it only to get back to this world from another section of this world. Because, really, she was really in this world, but “this world” runs thousands of years. She was in another time sequence, and if at this very moment she went back in time and you saw people dressed differently, if you slipped back in time a thousand years and you saw people dressed a thousand years ago, you would think you were in another world. You’d be forgetful of the fact that that same world in which you now slip was once called “this world,” and we now reflect upon it as the past history of this world. But to you, relative to this it’s another world. It’s only this world, and you slip into all these different time sections of this world. If you don’t know it, anyone functioning there now will look upon you as a visitor from another planet, from another world. It’s another section of this world.

But while we are in this section of this world, we can use this same technique to move from our present state into another state. To understand this principle, you must always bear in mind the great distinction between infinite states and the occupant of the state. When I speak to you I’m not speaking to states, I am speaking to the occupant. And tonight, no two are in the same state in this room, we are in different states. But I am speaking to the occupant of the state, and that occupant is God. Actually, I’m speaking to God. I can’t speak to anyone else; there is no one else. And so, God became that state, entered that state, regardless of the nature of that state. Whether it be restricted or free, it’s a state. Man, not knowing it’s a state, he thinks he is the state and he doesn’t know how to get out of the state.

Well, you take this lady’s experience. For I can tell you from my own experience unnumbered times of finding myself deliberately making a choice to wake in a state. And so, I could wake in a dream to find that I could explore that dream, and the world was just as real as this, solidly real. The people are real; I talked with them, they talked to me. And then I could dissolve from that world and find myself back here in this section of time, pick up the threads where I left them the night before when I fell off to sleep. This seems mad, but as Blake said, “There are states of consciousness in which the visionary is declared a madman.” Yes, there are numberless states where you would be considered, if you told it to another group other than you, I would be declared an insane person. But I can trust you.You know I am sane (I think I am) and yet I can share with you all these strange experiences, because I am not confined to the evidence of my senses here. Falling asleep and deciding—not every dream of mine I want to awake in it—some dreams are not pleasant. I wouldn’t want to awaken in that section of time. Other dreams are most pleasant, and so you could awake in that. Consciousness follows vision, you awake in the dream, and the dream takes on all the properties of this external world. While you’re in it you explore.

But the technique by which you awoke and the technique by which you return is the same technique to move from one state to the other in this world. If I use it to move from one section of time here to another section of time of the same world, yet the time stretches, say, 6,000 years…but I don’t want 6,000 years…I want to take it back now in another state right here. So there are infinite states and you are the pilgrim moving through states. You’re moving toward the ultimate state, which is the inn. The inn wherein the symbol of your awakening takes place: It is called the birth of Christ. The birth of Christ is simply a departure from the entire wheel of recurrence into a new creation altogether. But you don’t depart that night. You reach the end of your road and you remain long enough to tell it to encourage every being (who happens to be God) that the word of God is a true story. Everything is true about it. And so you remain, but when you do depart it’s your last experience on the wheel of recurrence. You can say with Paul, “The time for my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:7). But that may come tonight, it may come next month, may come next year, or, maybe, ten years from now. It doesn’t matter, because you reach the end of the road when you reach the inn. That lovely little poem of Christina Rossetti, she calls it Uphill.: “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting place, a room, for the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn.”

Don’t be concerned, you cannot miss that inn. You come to it and you don’t even realize you’re on it; and suddenly you’re in the inn, and the child is coming forth, bearing witness to the event that was in the beginning predetermined. You didn’t determine it. “Let us make…let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). We didn’t say, “Let us make God in our image.” God said, “Let us make man in our image”; that’s the primal wish. It is his responsibility and no one in the world can stop him from bringing to fulfillment that which was in the beginning that primal wish. And it ends…it comes to fulfillment in the inn, when suddenly all that was foretold concerning Jesus Christ…for he is the image of the invisible God. Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God. So when he completes the image he has completed Christ, because as he completes his image you are Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the power and the wisdom; but the power and the wisdom of God is personified and it’s you.

So let no one in any way divert you by telling you of some other concept of salvation. He prepared the way of his return before the world was made. Listen to these words, and how can you interpret these five terms and reach any other conclusion other than that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29). But I don’t see how anyone could take these five terms—-foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified—-and arrive at any conclusion other than that we are predestined to be God. For to be glorified…listen to the words, “And now, Father, glorify thou me with thyself with the glory that I had with thee before that the world was” (John 17:5). He asks for the return of a glory that is his, that was one with God the Father, therefore, he is God the Father. It’s God’s purpose to give himself to us, as though there were no others in the world, just God and us. But the us is a compound unity, it’s a oneness, because all of us form one. He’s bringing that one being out of the seeming many and yet we do not lose our individual identities.

But here, you take this simple, simple picture of withdrawal from one state into another and you work it out. She said, A bed and a pillow, and so I’ll return because it didn’t look…but I thought it might be…in the beginning it seemed a bit threatening when these seven came and stood before me. I said, get out of here quickly…and I remembered the teaching. Having remembered, I put it into practice and I felt myself dissolve from that chair, leaving it empty for them to contemplate the empty chair, while I felt myself securely placed upon my bed. Well, you can take anything and do it using the same principle. I have taken ladies who want to be married. Well, alright, what dissolved from one state, what state? Where I can’t feel a ring here; and then all of a sudden I feel a ring, a ring that would imply the fulfillment of my desire to be married. Well now, put another quality to it, to be happily married. Not just to be married but to be happily married, to be proud of the name I bear and to be proud when you say, “I want you to meet my husband”; or if it happens to be a man, he may not wear a ring, but there’s something else he could actually feel, as the lady would feel the ring, and then be proud to say, “I want you to meet my wife.”

So whatever you would do, do it in the same way, so you would move from one state to the other state. They’re all states, infinite states, but you, the occupant, you are not a state. Imagination is not a state. Imagination is the man himself, and that man is God. For, “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination; that is, God himself” (Blake, Ann. to Berkeley/Laocoon). So here, when we speak of the real you, I’m speaking to your Imagination, and that is God. Well, what did she use to move back? She used her Imagination.She imagined a pillow under her head, she imagined a bed under her body, and felt herself detach itself from that chair, and she found herself safely back in her own room. A mother of five small children, she certainly didn’t want to leave five small children in this world. They’re all just simply tots. The fifth one happens to be named after me and Blake, his name is Neville Blake. And so I’m a godfather, I’m the godfather of all five of them. So she didn’t want to leave five children in this world. But she did remember the teaching she got from this platform, which to me is a marvelous thing, because the waking person remembers. If you don’t remember, you’re sound asleep. While in it she remembered the teaching and decided this is the one dream in which I want to awake. Her husband is a teacher. She is qualified to teach and it interested her that here is a hall of higher learning and here is a professor giving a lecture—-not many listening to him, but, nevertheless, he’s giving a lecture. And so, she awoke in the dream to discover that what I’m saying from this platform is true. And then while in it, she also remembered when it became threatening and someone said “Here’s another one, someone from outer space or from some other world, here she is.” And so she felt a little bit uneasy with this threatening attitude of the nine of them, and decided to return. But how to return? And she remembered. She remembered that I told her what happened to me.

Now may I tell you, as I’ve told you, not recently but a long time ago, one day you’re going to see it: This whole vast world is dead and you are the life of it. The whole vast world is dead and you really are the life of it; for what God is giving to his sons that he formed is himself. And God is the God of the living, God is life; so “As the Father has life in himself, so he’s granted the son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). And how do I know it? I knew it from many experiences as I’ve shared them with you in the past. Well, here is one. I said earlier, the whole vast universe was brought in to being as a theater for God to manifest his power and his love in the development of beings fit to be called his son. And his son is life, for the son has life in himself. Well, one night from this platform I couldn’t answer a question that was asked by a lady. She said, “Neville, I’m terribly concerned about the future development of the animal world. Could you throw any light upon the evolution of the animal?” Well, I couldn’t. I had never had an experience, and any answer that I might have given to this lady would have been based upon speculation not upon anything that I knew from experience. So I told her, I can’t answer you intelligently now. I could tell you what I’ve read. I could tell you what the evolutionists claim is the future of an animal, the survival of the fittest, and so on. We can project some picture, but that may not be a true picture. So I can’t really honestly answer your question, but if I ever have a vision where the answer is given in vision, I’ll tell it to you.

Well, I was blessed with the answer a few days later. A few days later, I found myself at the top of a very tall ladder and down below were all the beasts of the jungle, the tigers, the lions, every wild animal down below…and they were angry, really angry. And I was afraid. I was alone at the top of a very tall ladder and all these were living, moving, angry, beings. And then I remembered that the whole vast world was myself made visible, so the animal would have to be myself made visible. I saw it one night with people, and a bird, and leaves, and all these things, where they were alive because I made them alive; and when I stopped that activity in me they all stood still. Well, the same thing should be true here now. So at first, when I lost my fear, these enormous big cats became docile like domesticated cats. The tiger wasn’t angry, the lion wasn’t angry, and they were simply lovely, lovely living things, but not angry. And I was completely unafraid. When I lost my fear I went beyond it now and I stilled in me the activity that allowed them to move. As I did that, they all froze; then I went down that stair. When I came back down, they were all dead, just as though they were made of clay. Every one was just as still as this, as though they were made of clay. So I looked at them, and then once more I began to release them from that ___(??) from within me. They became once more alive, but not angry…and I dissolved back into this section of time.

So I know there are levels in man where he will discover that this whole vast world is simply fixed states forever and forever. It’s fixed. It was brought into being after God made his decision to bring forth sons. You and I preceded, as told that story in the 1st chapter of Ephesians, you and I were part of this plan of God before he brought forth the world. This is not an after-thought, this is not some emergency thinking on the part of God. The whole thing was planned in detail before he even brought forth the universe. The universe was brought forth for a purpose, and the only purpose is to beget sons, sons like himself, companions forever. Infinite sons and yet altogether form one being…and that one being is God.

So here, take this simple technique, and while we’re still living in the world of Caesar use it. I can’t take you in detail and show you what I would do were I you to change a state. But you have intelligence, you can do it. The one with the lady with the ring, I’ve see that many, many times working beautifully; the one with the change of position, change of this or the other. What would you feel if now you were the person that you want to be? What would you feel? Well then, feel it…as she felt the pillow to prove she was back from that world into this world. Then what would you feel? For, really, feeling truly is the secret.Blake tells us that the door of feeling is closed in man. Yes, it is closed, but I’m trying with you to open it. Because feeling is the Western gate, he tells us, and the Western gate in man is closed: It’s the sense of touch. He calls it “the tongue.” Well, the tongue is touch, and so, the sense of touch or taste, and these are one in scripture. They only speak of four rivers in scripture and four senses: sight, sound, scent, taste and touch. Sight, sound, and scent are three separate ones in the fallen state; and taste and touch form one, for both depend upon contact, and he tells us that is the one that is closed in man. So what depends upon contact? Well, touch. You can feel the pillow, you can feel the bed. And that gateway in man is closed; man doesn’t know it. But he speaks of Imagination as spiritual sensation. Just extend your feeling and just feel what is not here to be felt, if you’re going to use only your eyes to see it or your other senses. But now, what is here that if you could touch it would imply that you have or you are what you want to be? Whatever you can touch, for that’s the closed door in man. So extend your senses and feel it. You’ll feel it; then you’ll find yourself actually moving from one state into another state, the state that you are dreaming.

So this is the story of this primal wish. “It has been taught us from the primal state that he which is was wished until he were.” And so, you wish it. Do the same thing. We’re called upon to imitate God as dear children. Well, if this is the way God does it, well then, I’m told to imitate him, and “he calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.” If that’s how he calls it into being then I must do the same thing. That verse is taken from the 4th chapter, the 17th verse of Romans: “He calls a thing that is not seen as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen.” So I will call the bed that isn’t seen. I’m sitting in a chair at a desk and there are seven men in front of me and two at my side, and so there’s no bed here and there is no pillow. But if I could only feel the presence of a bed under my body and a pillow under my head, then I would detach myself from this strange behavior of these nine men, and so I would actually find myself where I want to be.Well, we do the same thing in moving from any one state into another state.

Just…well, I don’t know what you really want this night. It could be money…and may I tell you, not a thing is wrong with wanting money. I don’t care what the world will tell you. They’ll tell you, you shouldn’t want it. If money, said Blake, is something we should not pray for, there’s practically nothing left to pray for.So when they told him that he shouldn’t want money, he said, well, if you don’t want money and that’s one thing you shouldn’t pray for, well, there’s nothing one should pray for. He was the most down-to-earth practical being in the world. Didn’t care for it, yet he had to have it. Went to his grave not having any to leave behind him, but he lived seventy wonderful, marvelous years, and left behind him a wealth you cannot estimate in dollars and cents. There’s no money enough that you could bring out to buy one of his ___(??). How could you buy one of his six copies of Jerusalem? He has one that is now the only one that is in color at Yale University. Well, you couldn’t offer Yale two million dollars for it and have them accept your offer. And so, he left behind him what today runs in to…you can’t measure in wealth…plus what he’s done to the minds of those who really found him.

So imagining is spiritual sensation and use that spiritual sensation to touch the object of your desire. For, he who is was wished until he were. Well, now the thing that we want to be, touch it, and wish it to be real until it becomes fact. Just as someone one night in my Bible class in New York City, I asked if she knew what she wanted. She named it down to the penny. She said, “My withholding tax is so much, and I don’t want less than so much in my envelope.” I asked if she could feel it? She said, “I could.” Could you now count the contents? Yes. Can you smell money? Yes. She brought all of her senses to play upon the contents of that envelope. She could shake the contents; then feel paper plus change, and then she counted off right down to the penny what she would receive were it true. Within one week she had that job, earning that amount of money.

It can’t fail you. But it doesn’t operate itself. We are the operant power because we are God, and there’s nothing but God in this world. So God actually came down to the limitation here, and then he’s moving up to where he was before, taking with him, us, taking all of us…but one by one. So I am inviting everyone to try it. And do share with me your results, because I want stories to tell to everyone to encourage all to try it. Because unless I can take these stories and bring new stories all the time, people get tired even of the thousand and one stories that I could tell you. They don’t want to hear the same thing, they want another story. So don’t be silent about it, tell me your stories, that from this platform—with your permission, naturally—I can encourage others how you can move from one state into another state and externalize the contents of that other state. For, they’re only states, infinite states. When you open the Bible and you read of these characters like Abraham, and you read Isaac and Jacob and David, they are states. The persons represented are not really meant there; they only simply represent the state, the significance of that state, but not the individual. Every one there is a state, and we pass through all these states. Our journey starts when we enter the state called Abraham…that’s the state of faith. We can hear the most incredible story and believe it because we believe him who said it. And we believe that all things are possible to God, and we heard it from God from the depths of our soul. And so, we enter that state and then the journey starts, and we remain faithful across the journey until we come to the inn when it comes into fulfillment. For, “Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

You come into the state of Moses. The word Moses means (from its Egyptian verb) “to be born.” Yet it’s a play on the word “to draw out”; for the word Mosheh is “to draw out.” For she said, “I found him and drew him out of the water.” And so, not the mother, she claimed she adopted him, who was the daughter of Pharaoh. So the word Mosheh, Mem, Shin, He, does really mean “to draw out.” You turn it around, it’s Heshem, and the word Heshem is “name.” You take the middle letter out and put it first, it’s Shema, and that is “heaven.” So, heaven is within you. So you’re really drawing out, out of the depths of your own being by the power which is symbolized here as Moses. But the word actually means by its ancient word, it’s really an Egyptian word, “to be born.” It’s a prototype of what is really to be born…because Moses could not enter the Promised Land. He came to the end and then he turned all the power over to Joshua. Joshua is simply the Hebraic form of the Anglicized word Jesus; Jesus and Joshua are the same word. And so, Joshua is spelled…I think it is spelled Jehovah—-Yod He Vau Shin Ayin. Yod He Vau He would be Jehovah. You put a Shin and you put an Ayin in the name, but the base of the word, which is Yod He Vau begins Joshua, and it is the same word for Jesus, and therefore the same. Jehovah is the same. So it is Joshua who moves into the Promised Land. So this is another state.

Now the whole vast world has been trying to find over the centuries a real live living history of Jesus. You aren’t going to find it, because you are he…this is his history and he wakes in you. The whole story is told so beautifully, but people are looking for him on the outside, and trying to find confirmation in fact in the pages of history when the whole drama unfolds within us. The whole wonderful story of Jesus Christ is taking place in us. It starts with the call of Abraham and comes to its culmination in the inn at Bethlehem…and that’s you.

So tonight you try this, just as the lady did. I don’t know what you’re going to use to touch, to imply that you have what you want. I have seen people take with the piano…when you couldn’t buy a piano during the war years…and this lady took an area of her apartment in New York City, cleaned off everything in the area where the piano would go had she the piano, and would actually feel the piano in that presence—when someone called her and said to her, “I’m moving to the coast, and I have a wonderful piano, and I don’t really want to sell it, could you use the piano? I don’t want to sell it to you. I will give it to you if you will take it. I don’t want to take it to the coast.” And she fell heir to the piano, a wonderful concert grand piano. I know the family well, I know the piano well. And she simply cleaned the area where the piano would go when it arrived, and she got the piano. This happened in this last…the 2nd World War. So as you’re told in the Book of Kings, “You say you want rain, dig ditches”—-prepare for the reception of what you say you want. So you won’t dig the ditches and you say you want rain…and there isn’t a cloud, not the size of a man’s hand…but I say, in spite of the absence of the sign of rain, prepare for the reception of rain.So prepare for the reception of the good that you seek by actually feeling its reality now, and then it comes into your world. Well, if you do so, you enter the state and then all these things belonging to that state externalize themselves in your world.

So the primal state began with a wish, and he which is was wished until he were. So you begin and imitate God like a dear child. And so you want something, begin with the wish, and then wish it until it is. You wish a thing by assuming that it is. For this grand being within you which is your Imagination will do nothing that you wish until you have imagined the wish fulfilled. You must imagine the wish fulfilled before you can get it into action. If you don’t imagine the wish fulfilled, it remains quiet. So not until the wish is imagined fulfilled do you move the being from one state into another state.

And may I tell you, as Blake said in his wonderful Vision of the Last Judgment: “I do not consider either the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state, but to be every one of them states of sleep which the soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of good and evil.” So all these states are; every conceivable state is already part of the eternal structure of the universe, and you the pilgrim, you move from state to state. And it’s entirely up to you. As we are told in Deuteronomy, “I place before you this day life and death, good and evil; choose life, choose blessings” (30:19). But it is entirely up to you. He said, “I made the good; I also made the evil. I fashioned the light and form the darkness…and there is no one to deliver out of my hands” (Is. 45:7; Deut.32:40). Who else could make darkness? Who else could make evil?—none but the only creator. So he made every conceivable state. When you read the Bible carefully, there isn’t one thing possible for man to experience, good, bad or indifferent that is not openly discussed in the Bible. Every conceivable vice, every violation of the so-called moral code, everything is in the Bible. And so, it’s entirely up to man to choose what he wants. You can choose this, that or the other; and as you choose you move into it, and you will experience the results of your choice. If you don’t like it, you get out of it, just like the lady. It was her decision to awaken in this particular dream. It had something about it that interested her. Her husband is a teacher, she is qualified to teach, and this was simply an institution of higher learning. So she awoke in it to find it was not quite as desirable as she thought in the beginning. But instead of regretting it, she detached herself from it and returned to her home and her family. And so, I invite everyone here to single out the dream, the initial wish now, this night, and then wish it until it is.

Q: (inaudible)

A: Meek? What does the word meek mean? It really means “to be disciplined,” as a wild animal is disciplined and falls into the state of being domesticated. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That’s the self-disciplined mind. For you take an animal…it’s really used in the same way that you take an animal that is a wild animal and train it. You can break an animal, a horse, for instance, so that you can ride that horse. Normally, you couldn’t take an animal out of the wilds and ride it, but you could take that same wild beast and train it and eventually ride it.

Well, the mind is as wild as the wild horse. You set it a task, and it’s almost impossible with even the disciplined mind to move logically from A to D, far less from A to Z. Take a sequence and see how quickly the mind jumps and bolts and goes in some other direction. But if you take, say, a sequence like the lady took…”I’ll take a pillow, I’ll take a bed, very simple…I can feel my pillow and I can feel the bed”; then she dissolved, leaving an empty chair to be observed by these people. So she took a short little sequence, but try taking even four…by the time you hit the third the mind has jumped to Z ___(??)You take any little sequence…bring before your mind’s eye a friend, congratulating you on your good fortune, and you start to say how wonderful it is, and in no time flat you’re justifying the previous failure or some other thing. Try to hold it and keep it right as you would hold the reins of a horse along a certain path. So the meek is really the self-disciplined mind. It’s tamed in the way that you tame the wild animal. That’s what the word means.

Q: Neville, would you interpret this word “buy, b-u-y, in the Revelation 3:18, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire that thou mayest become rich.”

A: Yes, the coin you use is patience and diligence.You don’t use the coin of Caesar. This is the book of the Spirit, and the values, the monies you bring in Spirit would be simply diligence, I would say a self-disciplined mind. That’s the coin you use, patience, courage, all these are the coins of heaven. And so, if you brought this coin, then you’d buy it with that.

Yes, Tom?

Q: Would you mind, if it’s possible in just a few moments to indicate the significance of the advent on Peter, Andrew, James and John?

A: Well, to me Andrew is simply watching. Andrew is like the first of the Old Testament—his name would be Rueben, “the corresponding one”, and Rueben is the oldest son. He was the first son and Andrew was the first one called. Andrew by definition is called “memory” but that doesn’t convey anything. But to me, Andrew is simply “to watch carefully”—know exactly what you want to see and don’t be diverted. Just see it as clearly as you possibly can…that would be Andrew. Peter is faith. He’s called “the rock.” “I call you no longer Simon, I call you Peter.” James is “righteous judgment.” A righteous judgment always would involve repentance. That is, if you see anything in this world and it doesn’t please you, rearrange it so that it pleases you. That’s right judgment, because, anyone who masters the art of repentance need never despair; because he can always repent, and repentance is a change of state. And John, well, to me John is love. And so, I always say to everyone whenever you use your Imagination use it lovingly. Whenever you use your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you are mediating God to that other, for God is love. So the choice is man’s. But use it lovingly, no matter what you do, always use it lovingly. And let this be your code, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Q: Why do we find, Neville…the other night I noticed this, the 18th Psalm, the words are almost identical with 2nd Samuel, chapter 22.

A: They are, almost to the word.

Q: Why is that?

A: I couldn’t tell you, Bill. You find many verses that are duplicated. After all, Samuel deals completely with David. And you’ll notice in that 18th Psalm the very long, I would say, introduction to that Psalm trying to emphasize the fact the whole thing is by and of David.

So you find at least what would be three verses, all put into one paragraph prior to the 18th Psalm trying to stress that point that this is all by and for and to David. And so, the Book of Samuel is all about David. He is his choice in Samuel—that God sees the heart, not the outer appearances, so he chose David, rather than the first brother or the second brother or the third brother. He wanted David because he saw the heart: I want a man after my own heart (Acts 13:22). Then it was David who brought down the enemy of Israel. It was David then who set his father free, because whoever brought down the enemy of Israel, his father would be set free (1 Sam. 17:25). We are the fathers when our David appears; and by his appearance he sets us free, because you can’t be free until the Son sets you free (John 8:36).

Goodnight.