The Six-Pointed Star

A man’s true environment is in his Imagination. The thing to do with a man is to get the true storythatreveals to man into man’s Imagination that he may be guided by it. A man is overwhelmed by that figure in his Imagination. And I firmly believe that the Bible reveals that God became man to get into us the true picture as revealed through the prophets.For man’s entire life is determined by that figure, that dominant figure, that he holds in his Imagination. He believes himself to be this, that or the other, and it’s going to influence his every action in the world. He can think that he’s wanted or unwanted, wise or unwise. No matter what he thinks, that dominant figure will influence everything that he does. For man’strueenvironment is really in his Imagination.

Now, an event can only be made known as it is borne witness to, as it is proclaimed, as the story is told. So tonight, I hope to be able to tell you the story, and I bear witness to it because I have experienced it. The Bible begins with God and ends with God. But man has not been told the true story. The Bible begins with the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and it ends, in the very last part of the Book of Revelation, it ends, “Come, Lord Jesus.” The very last verse is like signing off a letter, for I would say to you having written a lovely letter to you, “Blessings upon you and yours.” The last verse of that twenty-second chapter reads, “And the grace of the Lord Jesus upon you.” There are many translations, “upon all the same,” but the best manuscripts omit the word “all the same” and other manuscripts omit the wordall. So the best manuscript has “And the grace of the Lord Jesus uponyou.” It’s addressed to you personally.

But the verse before that, it is the very last word, “Come, Lord Jesus.” It begins with God, and it ends with God. But man cannot believe that God became man that man may become God. It’s the most difficult thing for man to accept. And because you’ve been taught to believe that Christ Jesus is something outside of yourself, you rebel against it. The whole vast world, those that call themselves Christians, and there are 900 million Christians, they believe that Jesus Christ is something other than themselves. They really believe it. They make little statues, all kinds of paintings to a being that they call Christ Jesus. They cannot believe the words of Paul, “Jesus Christ isinyou.” “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless of course you fail to meet the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5). He invites us to put him to the test—for all things are possible tohim—inviting them to put him to the test. They can’t believe that the being in the mirror, seeing something that does not fit their concept of Jesus Christ, they cannot believe that Jesus Christ is in them. So they rebel.

Now, this is the path. You follow this closely. It begins with God; it ends with God. In between, there is a drama, a horrible tragedy, but afrightfultragedy, that is essential to awaken us and make us sons. Can’t do it without the tragedy.So after the statement, “God,” God makes a selection and he chooses Israel: “Israel is my choice.” And you think of a race of people. Israel isnota race of people; Israel means “the pure in heart.” By pure in heart, it doesn’t really mean that you are namby-pamby in this world. It means that you are incapable of deceit. You would die, you’d be cut up into pieces, rather than deceive another for personal gain. That’s Israel. So when he finds an Israelite, he said, “I have found a man after my own heart.” It has to be the heart of God, the pure in heart, for only the pure in heart can see God. So after “God,” the passages of old, he now has put his model, and the model is Israel. Nothing but Israel can be salvaged from this entire play, the pure in heart.

So he said of Nathaniel when he saw Nathaniel, “Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile” but none whatsoever. That’s the first chapter of the gospel of John, when he sees Nathaniel, a pure Israelite in whom there is no guile. So the next is Israel. Then the next is the play, the stage, the battleground, and that’s called the Holy Land. The Holy Land is not in the Near East, where today modern Israel is established; no, the Holy Land is your mind—that’s the Holy Land. The whole battle, the whole drama, takes place in the mind of man. That’s the Holy Land of God, and on that battleground, he’s going to bring out Israel. So here we first find Israel, then we find the Holy Land.

Then after that, God reveals a law. It’s called the Torah. The Torah is a law to lead man in exile, where he passes through this barren land of Egypt; and yet with the use of the Torah, with the use of thiswonderfullaw, man can cushion the blows. For there are blows and they are coming, and you can’t stop the blows. But you can cushion them through the wise use of God’s law. God’s law is conditional. It is all mental, but man did not know it was mental. He thought it was an external behavior, that if I would attend school, do all the things on the outside, that this in some way would comfort God or protect me in his presence. And so man still today in l963 observes the outer actions in his temples, believingthatis keeping the law of God.

But the law of God was explained to us in the Sermon on the Mount, that when you do something physically, yet mentally it’s in conflict with what you’re doing physically, it’s what you did mentally. Listen to the words, “Any man who looks on a woman lustfully has already committed the act of adultery.” Now he didn’t commit it. He might have restrained the impulse because he was afraid of the consequences of his act, but that does not excuse him from the act. To look upon a woman with lust is to have committed the act.

Now, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, we are told one should not commit adultery. Man thinks adultery is an act, a physical act, where a married person is known by another other than her husband, or vice versa. Then we are told that is not adultery in the true spiritual sense of the word. Adultery is to look upon another with lust and want it, even though you do not perform it because you may contemplate the consequences of your actions—how it may bring about disgrace to you and your family. But that is not good enough. The very contemplation of the actwasthe act. So the whole thing is lifted to amentallevel.

But here we have a Torah, a law by which we live.So I may be tonight unemployed and the world tells me I can’t get the job, that all these are being displaced by automation, and so I accept that. Iwantthe job, but I am told by those who are supposed to know, I can’t get it. I am told that creation ismental; it is not based upon any physical law in this world. Creation is completely mental, that all causation is in my Imagination. That’s where my entire environment exists. And so I want to work. In my Imagination I’m gainfully employed, and I go to sleep in that state as though I am gainfully employed. I have never earned so much, I have never contributed so much to the world’s good, and I have never been so happy in what I’m doing, all in my Imagination, regardless of the evidence of my senses to the contrary. So that’s the Torah.

Now, first comes Israel. I’m going to make a heart so pure—not pure as the world calls pure, I mean pure in the true sense of the word: guileless. He could stand in the presence of nothing, and couldn’t raise his finger to put something into his mouth to satisfy a hunger if that is at the expense of another for personal gain.Thatis the pure in heart, the guileless, the Israelite. Now I’m going to give him a law by which, as I send him through the most horrible furnaces of the world, I’m going to give him a law where he can cushion the blows and play the part to aid in the awakening of myself in him, and comes the Torah.

After the Torah, we get the prophet, and the prophet reveals God’s promise to man. This is God’s promise to man—we read it in Isaiah, all the prophets, really—“And I have called Israel in whom I will be glorified.” I’m going to be glorified in Israel, only Israel, nothing but Israel. Forget a race of people and think only of the pure in heart, regardless of the pigment of the skin, regardless of the national, racial background—only the pure in heart is Israel. And I’ll call Israel in whom I will be glorified. That’s his command, and his command will not fail. He’s going to be glorified in Israel. So read it in the 49thchapter of the Book of Isaiah.

Now, he tells us what will happen before he reaches the end, which is himself; for the end is Jesus Christ.You are Jesus Christ, but you don’t know it yet. YouareJesus Christ; and the day is coming that God will awakeninyou as man, and Jesus Christ is God the man. God becomes man, and man became God.So the end is Jesus Christ. The beginning is God; it ends with Jesus Christ; and in between comes Israel, the Holy Land on which the battle takes place. Then comes the law, Torah. Then comes the prophets, the promise to man and the fulfillment of that promise. The promise is that he will make you himself.

So the cry is, “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory that I had with thee before that the world was” (John 17:5). He’s asking for one thing in this world: for the glory of God. And God cannot give his glory to another. Now listen to it carefully; the glory is given to usafterthe furnaces. You listen to it; it’s now the 48thchapter of Isaiah: “I have tried you in the furnaces. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should I give my name to be profaned and my glory to another?” Now he calls Israel, “And Israel, whom I have called; I am He, I am the first, and I am the last” (verse 12). If I am the first, I am God who created it all; I am the last, “Come, Lord Jesus!” The beginning and the end of the entire story: I am the first and I am the last.

So here, “I have tried you in the furnaces of affliction. For my own sake, I do it, for how should I have my name profaned?” And what is his name? His name is Father. The heart of God is the heart of a father. So the cry is, “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self… for I will not give my glory unto another.” He can’t give it unto another; he can only give it to himself. He has to make us himself. And it takes all of the furnaces of affliction to transform us into that part, incapable of deceit, incapable of taking advantage of another because in the end there is no other; there’s only God. When man thinks he got the better of another, who is fooling whom? There is no other, there’s only God. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God isoneLord.” There is no other. And so when I think something moving across the face of my world is other than myself and I can take advantage of it for personal gain, I am still asleep. I still must go through the furnaces to burn away that concept that blinds me from the oneness that is God.

So here, there are six definite states.You may call it the Mogen David if you will, the six-pointed star. It is God at the beginning. Then comes, “My choice is Israel.” Then comes the Holy Land—the mind of man is the Holy Land on which the battle takes place. There is no other land. No matter where you go in the world, the only Holy Land is your mind. Then comes a law by which, in that land when the battle rages, you can cushion the blows. If you find yourself in jail, you could while in there imagine yourself elsewhere; and the doors will open, and you will go where you’re imagining yourself to be. You could find yourself this night unemployed, and you could imagine yourself gainfully employed, and the doors will open from that prison state, and you would moved toward a wonderful job where you’re gainfully employed.

So the Torah is a conditional state. You cannot be in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state. They’re only states. So he doesn’t blame any being in the world. The being who played the part of a thief and the being who played the part of the judge who sentenced him are played by the same people. The supreme actor of the world is God. “God only acts and is in existing beings or men.”

So tonight in this room, only one being is present, and I am a speaker teaching the law as I understand it, as I have experienced it, and you are listening. The being listening and the being speaking are one and the same being. There aren’t two of us, there’s only God. So the man who is shooting the so-called culprit tonight because he was picked up as a spy, the one who was actually executing the order and the one against whom it is executed, are one and the same being. To tell you that Stalin and the Pope are played by the same being, you might be shocked, but there is no other being to play the part. It’s all a play, the whole vast world is a play, and one being is playingallthe parts. In the end, we are all Jesus Christ, the God that became man that man may become God.

So in the end, no man by the wise use of law could redeem himself, no man. I can know the law so intimately, know it so well, that I could cushion every blow. Knowing that, I could imagine myself now while I’m in prison to be elsewhere and actuallymoveelsewhere. When I am there, another change in pattern and once more I’m encircled, imagine myself to be elsewhere and I wouldgoelsewhere. I could play it so beautifully that no one could ever long encase me in any prison. But I cannot redeem myself no matter how wisely I use the law.Redemption comesonlyby the act of God. Divine mercy steps beyond this fabulous world of horror, really, and raises me and redeems me in the body of Jesus. I am redeemed in his body. I am one with him.

Standing here tonight to tell you I am one with his body, it seems so stupid, for I respond to the name Neville. If you call me Neville, I will answer. If you called me Jesus when I walk the street, I wouldn’t answer. If you said, “Jesus Christ,” I might be curious, but I would not think you mean me. I wouldn’t turn around. But if you say Neville, I would turn around and respond to the call called Neville, but I would not respond to that called Jesus Christ. Yet I do know from an actual experience I was absorbed into his body and became one with him, and I was the very being, by an actual experience.

So I tell you, by this experience, the event can be made known only as it’s borne witness to. So I told you my experience and recorded it in book form that it may outlast this little earthly garment. I’ve told you the story from time to time and will continue to tell it, for that’s the only way that I can proclaim it and have someone hear it. But it has been mistold through the centuries; it has not been told correctly. We’re all one, the whole vast world isone, and God is playingallthe parts. And this is the sequence through which it moves. God, in the beginning… “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” then selects the mold, the model, the Israel, the pure in heart. And then he has a stage, and the stage is the Holy Land, and the Holy Land is the mind of man. There is no other Holy Land. Then comes from that, the law. He reveals the law, and the law is made conscious to us and unveiled to us in the form of amentalapproach to life: that causation is mental; it isn’t physical. When man discovers itismental and it’s not physical, and he abides by it, and applies it, he lives beautifully in this world.

But he can’t redeem himself; he has to be redeemed by God. He’s buried in the sepulcher called “the skull of man.” That’s the only Holy Sepulcher in the world, your own skull. And then comes a prophecy and man discovers the prophecy by reading scripture. God has promised man that he would raise up out of man something that will come forth from him as though it were his son; and yet, it will be God’s son, and God will be his father, and this which came out of man will be God’s son. That’s the promise made in the 2ndSamuel, the 7thchapter: I promise you I will do it. And then the years go into years, and centuries into centuries, and where and when will it happen? Because the world thinks it’s going to happen once and for all.

Today, all the churches teach thatonceupon a time an individual was raised from the dead, and his name was Jesus Christ and that is it. Now listen to these words, and he mentions some teachers in his letter to Timothy—this is Paul writing his second letter to Timothy, the 2ndchapter—“They have swerved from the truth by teaching that the resurrection is past.” The resurrection hasn’t past; it is taking place. If you think that Jesus Christ is a single being that lived and died and was resurrected 2,000 years ago, and that’s it—you don’t know the story and you don’t know the mystery. Jesus Christ is God himselfburiedin every child born of woman, buteverychild, regardless of race, regardless of pigment, regardless of any background. In every child God is dwelling. God became man and becoming man is Jesus Christ. It’s in man, buried in man.

Now it’s JesusChristthat has to do the resurrecting. God’s mightiest act is the resurrection of Christinmanasthat man. So you come out of yourownskull, which was a tomb; and while it was a tomb, God transformed it into a womb. And out of that womb, your own skull, comes you. But you’re individualized. You don’t respond to the name of Jesus Christ, but you are he. For the only one that he is resurrecting is Jesus Christ, the man that is God, but it’s you, John or Mary or called by any name. When you come out, listen to these words now; these are from the Book of Galatians: “There is no bond, no free, no Greek, no Jew, no male, no female, in Jesus Christ” (3:28). That which comes out is above races, above sex, and above everything known to mortal man. There is no bond, there is no free, there is no Greek, there is no Jew, there is no male, and there is no female in Jesus Christ. He’s completely above the organization of this world. It’s an entirely different world, a new world.

And it takes anewman to function consciously in the new world. All of the blows of this world were necessary to produce that man. So in the midst of tragedy, don’t forget the glory. This was given to us in a very simple little way in the Book of Revelation: “And I saw a little scroll… and he offered me the scroll. He said to me, ‘When you take it, eat it; it will be bitter in your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.’ And so I took it; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey, but in my stomach it was bitter” (10:9). For that’s life, like a Jewish wedding, have you ever attended a Jewish wedding? They have two glasses of wine, one is sweet and one is bitter. The bitter one has very little in it, not much, and the sweet one is almost up to the brim but not quite. During the ceremony, you partake of both; you take the sweet and you take the bitter because that’s life. “Joy and woe are woven fine, a garment for the soul divine.” But there is more of sweet than there is of bitter. So in the midst of tragedy when the things are falling all around you, don’t forget the sweet, the glory, and the promise of God, for he’s giving you himself. So if today the whole world collapses all around you, don’t forget the glory, don’t forget there is more sweet than there is bitter in life. So in this marriage ceremony, you take both—you take the sweet and you take the bitter. There is more of the sweet than there is of the bitter, and so you go through life that way. But man in the midst of tragedy, he forgets the glory.

So Paul makes this statement in the 8thof Romans, he says,“I consider that the sufferings of this time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us.”I don’t consider even comparing them. A man may be in pain, or he may not be physically in pain, but he may be embarrassed because of some behavior of a relative or his family or his, well, inside himself in conflict. His country may be embarrassed, and he is hurt because the country’s embarrassed. But I can’t consider that I should even compare the sufferings of this time to the glory that is to be revealed to us. So the whole vast thing, you can’t compare them. The little bit of wine that is sour and bitter, you can’t compare it to the sweet that is ours. For when man is completely unveiled and he’s God, this whole vast world then disappears; it vanishes from consciousness. He is in a world that is completely subject to his own creative power. That’s God.

So here, don’t forget the six-pointed star, the Mogen David. You begin with God and you end with God. Here you have, your second is God’s choice, that is the mold. He uses the pure in heart, the guileless being, called Israel. Then comes the stage. He gives us a stage on which he’s going to play the drama, and that stage is called the Holy Land; and the Holy Land is your own wonderful mind. That’s the Holy Land. Then comes the law, a simple wonderful law, which is conditional.

All things are conditional in God’s law. If I go in a certain direction, I will encounter certain events, but I am free to change my direction and that is called in the Bible repentance. Repentance means change of mind. I may at any moment in time change my mind. Repentance does not mean what the world tells you it means, such as feeling regretful or remorseful or in any way sad of heart, no—no sense of guilt. I know what I am; well, then, I change my mind. A change in attitude toward life is a change of the world in which I live, an automatic change if I remain faithful to the change. So repentance begins the law in its spiritual sense. So the whole concept is “Repent, for the kingdom is at hand.” Well, that change in attitude of mine toward life is a complete change in myself in this world. That’s the Torah in a spiritual sense.

Then comes the promise, the prophecy, and he prophesies to man what he’s going to do to man: He’s going to give you himself. It is God’s purpose to give us himself and to give us himself so completely it is as though there were no others in the world, just God and you. Believe that, and the most fabulous story that I’m telling you becomes permanent and, I tell you from experience, possible. For in one short little interval of nine months in human time, three fantastic events will unfold in you, all leading up to the fulfillment of God’s promise to man. You’ll be born from above, out of your skull, just as a child is born from below from the womb of a woman. Just as a child is born, as you and I were born from our mother’s womb,wewill be born from our own skull, and come out in the same way of a child coming out. Only we’re not little babies. It’ll be symbolized as a babe, but we will be adults coming out, a fully-grown being coming out of our own skull. And the whole drama is symbolized just as told us in the Books of Matthew and Luke.

But man has completely misunderstood the story, and they say a little child was born of a woman called Mary 2,000 years ago. It isn’t so at all. It never was so. The only Mary in the world is the skull of man, theonlyMary, never was another Mary. And out of this wonderful skull of man, this divine womb of God, comes man; but his birth is symbolized in that of a little child, wrapped in swaddling clothes. The little child is discovered by men of the same age, right here. They can’t see the one who came out because this being is something entirely different. He belongs to an entirely different world, not wearing these garments at all.

But they knowofhim, and they know he is born. So they speak of him, and they will say, if your name is John, “How can John have a baby?” They still are ___(??) the concepts of this world, so they think the being found is not a sign, it’s a fact. That’s not the fact; it’s asignbearing witness to a fact they cannot observe. And he who is born stands in their midst, and he looks at them, well, they’re just like toys to him. He is now so powerful, so wise, so altogether omniscient and omnipotent as he stands in their presence, yet invisible to them. And harmless—he’s as harmless as a dove. He wouldn’t hurt one hair of their head. Because of their ignorance they can’t see him. Not a thing that he can do to make himself visible to them because they haven’t eyes to see the kingdom of heaven and they haven’t ears to hear the sounds of heaven. So he stands in their presence, a man clothed in the garment of heaven, invisible and inaudible to all who are present. But all the signs are present bearing witness to the event that took place in his case.

And after the event comes God’s promise to give himself to one that he succeeds in raising from the dead, which is to be born anew, born from above, and he gives him his Son as his own Son. He doesn’t give him his Son ___(??) planning to walk the street with him; he gives him his Son as his own son. And that being, invisible to the world, is the Son, and it’s David, the immortal David that is the sum total of humanity. So he gives you humanity symbolized in one youth, and it’s called David. You have no doubt as to who he is when you see him.

Then, God separates the veil. There will be no need as far as you are concerned to ever go to any intermediary to reach God. For when that veil is severed you have direct access to God. You don’t need any priest, any rabbi, any pope, anyone in this world to go to God. You’re one with him. And so, the temple is split right down from top to bottom. When it’s split from top to bottom, the prophecy is fulfilled: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up.” And that Son of man is lifted upasGod, for he beholds his own Creator and knows it to be himself. He is now self-begotten. There’s only God. He can’t beget other than himself, and the whole vast play is to bring him out. He created the whole vast world for the purpose of bringing them out.

I think Blake put his finger on it when Blake said to Max Beckman in vision one night, “Have confidence in objects, do not let yourself be intimidated by the horrors of the world. Everything is ordered and correct and must fulfill its destiny in order to attain perfection. Follow this path and you will obtain from your own ego a far deeper perception of the eternal beauty of Creation: and then you will attain greater and greater release from what to you at this moment seems to be so sad and so horrible.” You will be released from the horror of it all if you follow this path. Yield completely to it; let it be.

And this is the play. This whole vast tension today in the world between races and nations, all these are part of God’s play. And when it’s all over, the scenery will remain, the ___(??) may remain, but you and I will be extracted, and all are one. If tonight you played all the parts of Hamlet, just suppose you played all the parts of Hamlet—you played Hamlet, you played his mother, you played the uncle, the ghost of the father, you played all the parts. At the end of playing all the parts, who are you? You’re not Hamlet and you’re not the mother or the murderous uncle, the wounded and dead father, or any part. You are the actor. Well, “God only acts and is in all existing beings or men.” And so the supremeactorof the world… God is not a passive observer of this pageant of Israel, he is the supremeactorin the drama.

And so Godinman is I AM, that’s God, and he’s playingallthe parts. If I’m playing all the parts of Hamlet tonight, but every one, if the play came down and I changed my costume and came back as the mother, changed my costume and came back as the father, the ghost, changed, came back as the uncle, the murderer of the king, I’m still the same actor. Well, do you know that God is playing all the parts? There is nothing but God in this world. But he’s playing it for a purpose: to individualize himself as Jesus Christ; and when the play is done,you areJesus Christ. Everyone will be Jesus Christ.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q:   Neville, we were hoping you would give a lecture on Revelation before you close the series. Would you tell us the lecture before because I have a friend most anxious to hear that?

A:   All right, my dear. Now to get back ___(??). Bear in mind, like tonight’s subject, there was more of the sweet wine than the bitter in the wedding, and there is more of the sweet than the bitter in the little book that John was so eager for in Revelation. So in going to the ark, there were more of the clean animals than the unclean animals. But life would not be complete if everything was without choice on the part of man. If there were no evil in life, there could be no knowledge of good. If man had no choice, he would be an automaton; he’d be a puppet. So into the ark, and man is the ark of God—“I’m either the ark of God or I’m a phantom of the earth and the sea.” But I’m not a phantom. I am the ark of God, and in that ark goes everything, the clean and unclean animals, and man has to choose. It’s not an animal—these animals are but simply states. These are symbols of states of consciousness, and it’s entirely up to man to choose the states into which he will go. He may fall into the unclean, officious state unwittingly, or he may wittingly go into it. But it’s entirely up to man to choose the thing he will serve. And so the ark has been stocked with all animals; there are more clean than unclean. I have seen the Jewish service of the wedding; there’s more of the sweet wine than the bitter.

Now if I decide to give a talk on Revelation, I promise you I’ll let you know a lecture or two before. I have but two and a half weeks left… I close at the end of this month on a Friday night.

Q:   (inaudible)

A:   ___(??) individualized, the minute he knows salvation is mental and not physical, and up he goes from Egypt and the great exodus is on, leaving this whole vast world.

Until Friday.