What Does the Lord Require?

Tonight’s subject, that is, the title of the subject is taken from the Book of Micah, the 6th chapter, the 8th verse. In this verse, he asks a very simple question. First, he makes the statement, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to be just and kind and live in quiet fellowship with your God.” Nothing else is required of man after man has been told what is good, these three fundamentals. Outside of these, the outer ceremonial is an affront to God. It’s an attempt to bargain him into accepting from man less than he wants of man. So, all the rituals, all the ceremonials, everything on the outside is really an affront to God. All he asks of us is to be just, to be kind and to live in quiet fellowship with our God. Well, how would we go about living in quiet fellowship with our God?

I think tonight you are going to find this a very, very practical approach to living in this quiet fellowship with your God. To understand it, let me go back now into the Book of Psalms, the 4th chapter, the 4th verse: “Be angry, but do not sin; commune with your own hearts upon your own beds, and be silent.” How would I do it? Would that really be living in quiet fellowship with God? Yes. Well, how do I know? I’ll tell you this night how I do know. There are supposed to be a billion Christians in the world. And I wonder what percentage…it would be so small it would be ridiculous. If I would ask a very simple question of the whole billion, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-I’m quoting from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the 13th chapter, the 5th verse; he’s asking the Corinthians, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?”—-if we were honest, the billion of us who claimed that we are Christians, our answer would be, no, we do not know that Jesus Christ is in us. All you have to do is go to any home, especially the homes of those who put up pictures and little icons, and look and see what they have on the wall to represent Jesus Christ. It doesn’t faintly resemble any member of the family, far less the one who occupies the home as owner. It doesn’t resemble in the most remote manner any member of the family. And most of them are painted or done by very poor artists…they’re monstrosities. But there they are, all over the walls, all over the places in all these homes that call themselves Christians. They do not know that Jesus Christ is in them.

Tonight, you do this in a simple way, for I’m speaking from experience. You are told to be angry, and the word translated “angry” is “perturbed, enraged.” So something disturbs you, burns you up, but do it in the seclusion of your bed. Do it in the silence of the night, the darkness of the night. Let it off your chest. You’re required to help someone; and that someone has been helped, then they go back and go back a hundred times, and you are made aware of their falling back. How often Lord…seventy times seven (Mat. 18:22). But get it off your chest, tell them exactly what you think, and then, do not sin. These are the words, “Be angry, but sin not” (Eph. 4:26). Sin is missing the mark; sin is having a target and failing to hit it. You have a goal in life, either for yourself or for another, and if that goal isn’t reached, well, then you’ve sinned. So be angry, but sin not.

Then comes the technique: “Commune with your own hearts upon your own beds, and be silent.” So after you’ve gotten it off your chest, you bring them into your focus once more and see him as he ought to be seen, hitting the mark. You bring about your inner conversations either with this individual or with others, implying he, she or they have realized the goal regardless of what that goal is. If you now put into your picture that you are kind, would you like it done to you? Yes! Well, then that’s right. That’s one of the fundamentals. Is this now just? That’s just, you can forgive sin and you must be kind, and now live in quiet fellowship with your God. Well, am I communicating with God? I am. Well now, do I know that what I am doing now is really seen by God? How do I know that God is actually seeing this…because with God all things are possible. Well, I’ll tell you exactly how you can know, if you’ll trust me. I now turn to the 42nd Psalm, and in this Psalm (you’re all familiar with it), “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” That’s how this wonderful Psalm begins. He wonders when he will come and behold the face of God, for all day long men say to him, “Where is your God?” As he pours out his soul, they are always asking, “Where is your God?” Then he calls upon a memory and he said, “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: when I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God, in joyful songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival” (verses 1,3,4). He remembers that.

Well, now let me share with you an experience that parallels this—-how I know that Jesus Christ is in us. I’m not unique, Jesus Christ is in every child born of woman, but people do not know it. So when they ask “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” they can’t honestly say, “Yes, I know.” They might have heard of it through someone else, they might have read it, as you read it in the scripture, but they don’t know it. They haven’t experienced it and they have not that inner conviction that it really is true. Now, what I’ll tell you now I did not hear from a man, I was not taught it, it came to me by revelation of Jesus Christ. Many years ago I found myself in vision leading a throng in a gay procession towards some invisible house of God. The crowd was thick, and as far as vision could go, an enormous crowd, all in gay Near East costumes. As we walked toward this invisible crowd, a voice rang out from out of space, and the voice said, “And God walks with them.” To my right, this woman (she appeared to be Arab) and she asked the voice, “If God walks with us, where is he?” and the voice replied, “At your side.” She took it literally and turned to her side. I happened to be on her left side as we were leading this procession. Then she became hysterical. I mean, it struck her so funnily that she simply had hysterics. She said to the voice, “You mean Neville is God?” and the voice replied, “Yes, in the act of waking.” The same voice, now heard only by me, not by the crowd…for everyone heard that voice, in her voice and the voice, the announcement that God walks with them; the question “Where is he?”; “At your side”; “You mean Neville is God?”; “Yes, in the act of waking”—-all that was heard by the whole throng as we moved in procession to the house of God.

But now the voice speaks in the depths of my being, heard only by me, and the voice said, “And God laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream, he dreamed…” and I knew exactly the finish of the sentence: “He is dreaming that he’s me,” I knew it. And at that moment, sheer ecstasy, for I was actually sucked into this body by whirling vortices. This hand is a vortex, this hand a vortex, my soles of both feet a vortex, and my head a vortex, and the right side of my body a vortex. Far from pain it was sheer ecstasy as I was nailed upon this body. Well, who was nailed upon the body? For I was not the body…this thing took place in vision and I, a living reality, a soul that animates bodies, actually was riveted on this body; and with a joy, an ecstasy that you can’t describe in words. It’s something entirely different. And I knew what it meant to be asked, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” I knew then, at that very moment, from experience that the dreamer in me is Jesus Christ, for he laid himself down within me to sleep—there was a purpose—and as he slept he dreamed a dream. Well, who is dreaming a dream but the dreamer, and he’s dreaming that he’s me. Don’t I feel I am the being that I am? Am I not the dreamer dreaming this that I am? So commune with your own power upon your bed and be silent.

So tonight when you are in your bed and you think of someone and you set up a pattern that you want to hear for them—-whether it be health, wealth, good fortune, success, I don’t care what it is—-and just simply bring it into your mind’s eye, believing that the being who has done that is Jesus Christ. If he annoys you prior to that or something disturbs you, you are told in the 4th Psalm, Be angry, be perturbed, be enraged, but do not sin. In other words, get it off your chest, but sin not. The next stage is now to set up the pattern once more. You took a picture and you either over-exposed it or maybe destroyed it after it was realized…can’t find it now. You brought success into his world or you brought him into some other state of joy, a state where he’s gainfully employed. Then he’s fired at the end of a day, week, month or maybe some time later, and you hear of his distress again. You hear that, well, he got into the people’s hair as it were and they simply couldn’t keep him any longer. And he’s lost job after job after job and he turns to you once more. Seventy times seven! And being very human you are invited in the 4th Psalm to be angry, to be enraged, to be perturbed, but now do not sin. Right after it gets off your chest then go ___(??).

Who is doing it? Jesus Christ is doing it. Christ actually laid himself down with man, humanity, for a purpose: to sleep. What is the call in scripture? “Wake, sleeper, arise from the dead,” as you’re told in the Book of Ephesians (5:14). As we’re told in the 44th Psalm, “Rouse thyself! Why sleepest thou, O Lord?” (verse 23). Well, who is the sleeper? He is calling upon God to awaken. Well, where will he awaken if he entered me to sleep? This seems to be his sleeping place. He sleeps in man and the sleep is so profound it is to the world death. So he’s called upon to awaken from this state called death. While he’s in it, he’s dreaming and he’s dreaming the dream of life.

Now, you can modify that dream by communing with your heart on your bed at night, just as simple as that. You read it when you go home, the 4th chapter, the 4th verse of the Book of Psalms. After you get it right off and you explode and just tell them off as it were; but do it at night in your bedroom, in the seclusion of your bed, in the stillness of the night, when you are quiet. That’s when you’re told to do it. All you need do is to see does it fit now these three fundamentals. Does it fit justice? Am I asked now to do to someone else what I wouldn’t want someone else doing to me? If someone came here this night and said, “You know so-and-so is in my way and I want him fired.” Well, is that justice? No, it doesn’t fit my code; it isn’t my code, so I couldn’t accept that request from anyone. Someone said to me, “You now, he’s in my way, I want him to die. Get him out of my hair altogether, I want him to actually die.” Would I want someone to ask that for me? No I wouldn’t. So do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. It isn’t just…that’s not one of the fundamentals.

Now the next one is kind, be kind. Alright, would it be kind if I saw the man promoted? Oh, yes, that would be kind. Would I want to be promoted? Yes, well, now that’s alright. It comes within, it fits the frame. And the last one—-there are only three he gave us—-what does the Lord require of you? The third one is so very simple: to live in quiet fellowship with your God. Well, I found who he is: he is the dreamer in me. I must be in quiet fellowship with that dreamer. I don’t want any bad dreams, that’s not being in quiet fellowship with the dreamer. I have found Jesus Christ to be the dreamer in man, in every man in this world. And by man, I mean generic man—-male, female. Every child born of woman…the dreamer in that child is Jesus Christ. So when you go to bed tonight, do not let the sun go down upon the anger. Be angry if you want to, to clear the whole atmosphere like lightning clears the atmosphere. And after the whole thing is cleared, then come and set it up again, and set up that scene that you really want to take. For the being that is setting it up is Jesus Christ. He actually became man that man may become Christ.

So I am not quoting only Mr. Blake; I know this from experience. Long before I read Blake I had this experience. I was not the poet to put it into words like Blake. So when Blake said that God became man that man may become God, I read the words of Blake long after I had the experience. But I was not given to writing. I do not consider myself at this very moment, though I have brought out twelve books, I am not in my own mind’s eye a writer. Blake was a writer, he was the grand poet. He was a painter, the artist in every sense of the word. So he could take an experience like mine and put it into such beautiful, beautiful English. And he said, “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” How beautifully he stated it.

Well, if Jesus Christ is the core of my being, the dreamer, and he fills all, he’s all in all, what could I encounter that is really in a true sense without? He is dreaming it into being. Well, I can modify the dream, for it isn’t going to alter the pattern that I gave him. I give him a pattern and he’ll perpetuate that pattern indefinitely unless I modify the pattern. So how often must I do it?—until it’s done. If it comes within the code of these three fundamentals…that’s all he asks of me. What does the Lord require of you? And then he answers it, But to be just and to be kind and to live in quiet fellowship with your God. Well, having found God as my own wonderful Imagination, for my Imagination is the dreamer in me, I can’t think of anything without Imagination. I couldn’t dream anything whether it be a daydream or a night dream without the use of Imagination. So isn’t my Imagination Jesus Christ?

When Blake said that “The eternal body of man is the Imagination, and that is God himself” he had the experience (Berk.,Pg.775). He must, to have remembered walking with the throng and leading them in procession to the house of God. I know I did. And I heard the voice at my right, I heard the voice in space, and I heard the voice in the depths of my soul—-when it said to me, God laid himself down within you for a purpose, to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream, he dreamed…and I knew exactly what he was dreaming: He laid himself down within you to dream and he’s dreaming that he’s you. And that dreamer can take any dream and externalize it, because with God all things are possible. So you start with the dream; and no power in this world can stop it from externalizing itself and becoming objective in your world. They can’t stop it. You don’t need them! As you are told, “Go within, shut the door and your Father who sees in secret he’ll reward you openly” (Mat. 6:6). In the Psalm you’re told, “Commune with your own heart upon your own bed, and then be silent.” That’s all you do, commune with your own heart and then be silent. You don’t raise one finger to make it so. You simply believe in the reality of this imaginal act, that’s all that you do. You must give reality to what you’ve done.

So I know from experience that revelation is the principle source of religious insight. Revelation has made me the speaker feel so secure in what I tell you. Before it, I might have speculated, I might have trusted wise men, and because they could speak in so many ways and they were so brilliant in the eyes of men, I might have repeated what they said. I don’t any more…it doesn’t matter what they said. My only source now outside of vision is the Bible. So I go back and I read the Bible after the vision, and I search it thoroughly for confirmation of the vision, because if it’s not recorded in scripture it’s non-existent. This is an eternal word, and everything else comes and goes and vanishes, but the word remains forever. And so, I went back and here came the 42nd Psalm. I do remember this, I remember when it happened to me, exactly the night it happened, and how this crowd appeared and suddenly I am leading them in this gay procession, where?—-to the house of God. I had no doubts in my mind where we were going. I knew we were on our way to this invisible Mecca, the house of God, and all these lovely gay clothes around me, a festive crowd. I knew the search that was mine prior to this, for the Psalm begins, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Well, that was my search from the time I was a child, that constant search. It was a thirst that not a thing in this world could satisfy but an experience of God. Then comes this fabulous night of the crowd and the voice telling me exactly who I am: A sleeping garment as it were of God. That when he entered this death’s door with me he did it for one purpose: To share with me my visions of eternity and dream with me until together we awake; and we aren’t two then, we are only one (Eph. 2:14,15).

So he came into this garment and it’s dead. He emptied himself of his primal form, took upon himself the limitations of this form to dream with me my dreams of the world of death, really. (Phil. 2:7). For things come, they wax, they wane, they vanish; and all things come and vanish in this world, all things begin and end. The world of death…he took upon himself the world of death as he entered this garment which I now call myself. But I know it isn’t my being, because I was actually nailed upon it. No, I know what I am. So I can say to the world that that act of the crucifixion where six points were pierced (not five)—-my two hands, my two feet, my head and my side; there were six like the Mogen David, the six-pointed star—and they were whirling vortices and they produced in me a joy that you can’t describe. So this was the remembrance of the initial crucifixion. For we are told, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5). So everyone is united in this death, just like that; and it’s God in you or you couldn’t even breathe, you couldn’t move, you couldn’t be here this night. You couldn’t in any way be a conscious entity were it not that God is in you as the dreamer.

Now tonight when you go to bed, don’t think of some little being that must rise before morning and rush off to the job; it is God sleeping that night and all things are possible to God. Regardless of what happened to you today on the job—-you might have been threatened with being discharged, maybe your creditors are pressing you—-alright, everything is possible to God. So when you put your head on the pillow commune with self and that communion is actually in this quiet fellowship with your God. This is the God of whom the Bible speaks—when you say “I am” that’s he. Now, what are you doing? You say, “Well, I’m thinking of John, and John needs, well, he needs a good job. He has a wife, he has children, he has to support them, and it’s not enough.” Raise him up in your mind’s eye. Well, how would you raise him up? Well now, do you know a friend, a third party who would tell you of John’s good fortune after the event? Alright, bring that third party into the picture and just hear the conversation between you and the third party discussing John’s good fortune. That’s all that you do. Now believe in the reality of that imaginal act. That’s all that you do. Just trust it and know, really know that the being that is doing it is Jesus Christ.

So that’s why I said earlier, go into the homes and say, “Where is a picture of your Lord?” and they point to the wall. And then you say, “Bring your children, your uncles, your aunts, your grandparents, bring me all the pictures,” and it doesn’t faintly resemble the picture on that wall. And yet he became you so thoroughly that he is you. Not like another, just like you. He took that mold and is raising you to be just as he is, without loss of identity. So when you see him he’s going to be just like you. That is Jesus Christ.

So you’re told in the same Psalm, “When will I come and behold the face of God?” In the 27th Psalm, “Thou hast said, ‘Show me thy face. My heart longs to see thy face” (verse 8). And I tell you, you are going to see that face. The day you see it, you’ll be startled beyond measure—-you’re going to look right at your own face, not another. It’s you raised to the nth degree of beauty, of majesty, of dignity, of a strength of character, of…you can’t conceive of your beauty when you see the being who is meditating you. You’ll actually have an experience where you come upon a being; as you look at him he’s glowing and it’s yourself. That’s Jesus Christ who so became you that he doesn’t resemble anyone but you. And so you’re told: “If any one should say, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ believe him not” (Mark 13:21). Why should I not believe him?—because, “When he does appear we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).

So don’t be ashamed to know that the being in you is actually Jesus Christ. “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in thee?” Well, the honest answer to that question from the one billion Christians actually is, “No, I don’t know that at all.” But I tell you from experience this is all revelation and revelation makes us sure. So you can argue the point, do all kinds of things. What does this same 5th verse of the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians tell us? He tells us to test it and see. He said, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourself and see. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” So we are invited to examine ourselves to see if we are holding to the faith. So tonight after you do what I hope you’ll do, tomorrow examine yourself to see if you really believe in that creative act. That was a creative act; see if you really believe in it. Now you put yourself to the test: In the not distant future, what you did tonight should externalize tomorrow or in the not distant future. See if you are holding to your faith. Well, that’s your faith. Your faith may be…but no one here, I doubt that anyone here, would have faith in some little icon or in some little service at the altar. I tell you, it is an affront to God, all this palaver that goes on all the time, as though some being on the outside is watching it and is chalking up to our little credit what our little attendance inserts. Hasn’t a thing to do with true Christianity. Christ walks wherever you are in this world. If this very night you stand at a bar, or you leave here and you go into a coffee break, wherever you are seated that’s where God is seated.

But he’s dreaming; he hasn’t yet awakened in man. He awakes in the individual, one after the other. He will awake in every being in the world. Until he awakes in all it isn’t over. It can’t come to an end until all awake. But do believe the words of one who has had the experience of waking; and the being who awoke, may I tell you, was the being who became me. We aren’t two anymore, we’re only one. In the story as told in the scriptures, you and I are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3). I speak of a universal Christ, not a little Christ, a universal Christ. He actually became every being in the world and so you are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Well, when he resurrects, it’s you—-because you have no change of identity and you have no feeling that another one rose with you, it’s all you. That’s how unique it is. You rose from the dead. And yet scripture tells you, only Jesus Christ rises from the dead. So if only Jesus Christ rises from the dead and you have the experience of having risen from the dead, well, then you know who you are.

And you aren’t ashamed of it. You make no excuses to those who think this is blasphemy. You go back to ancient scripture and that’s what they said 2,000 years ago, and that’s what they’ll say every moment of time to anyone who makes a similar claim. Have you ever wondered why in all that is written of Jesus Christ in the scriptures that there is no personal description of him? There isn’t one word to describe him in any of his person or in his habits. Others are described, but not one word to describe Jesus Christ—-whether he was tall, whether he was short, whether he was fat, whether he was thin. Why do you think that there is no description of him? Because there was nothing unusual about the outer man. He is the supernatural being. You can’t see him. He’s just like you when you see yourself supernaturally; therefore, why describe the outer garment, which is his sleeping garment? So it isn’t described at all. More words are written about Jesus Christ than about any man that ever walked the face of the earth. I don’t care who may have these biographies. There is nothing said about our great Lincoln…or go back beyond Lincoln, go back to the early characters…nothing is said of any character that faintly comes to what is said of Jesus Christ—and yet no description of him.

You write some story of our late President…or you go back, say, to Mr. Roosevelt. You couldn’t write a biography of him without saying the man was paralyzed; he couldn’t stand on his own feet unassisted; that he always had a cigarette in his face with a long holder, and you’d paint such word pictures of a man and you can see him vividly in your mind’s eye. But not a thing is said about Jesus Christ. The 11th chapter of Matthew makes one little statement, comparing him to John. They said John had a demon because he came neither eating nor drinking; and when Jesus Christ came, he came eating and drinking and they called him a glutton and a drunkard and a friend of sinners and tax collectors. But that doesn’t describe the man. I could be a drunkard and be very, very thin or very, very fat, or I could be a glutton and still be very, very thin or very, very fat. I could be a small little fella as a glutton and a drunkard or a very big fella. But that doesn’t describe to say that I’m a drunkard, I’m a glutton and I love sinners. He didn’t come to save the righteous—they are already in their own mind’s eye so complacent, he left them alone—only those who were missing the mark in life. So he was a friend of sinners.

So who is this being who is not described in scripture? His personality is not at all described. He sits right here this night in everyone who is here. And when you just think of your home right now, that act of thinking that was Jesus Christ. You think of a home that you wanted to have, instead of what you have, that’s Jesus Christ. Is everything possible to Jesus Christ? Well, then trust that imaginal act and see how he externalizes that act in your world. He will! He doesn’t need the help of any being in the world to do it. But when you tonight do it, do it quietly. Get it off your chest first if you are going to think of someone else who has annoyed you—it could be a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, and you would like to tell them off and tell them something. So you’re told to do it: Be angry, but sin not. Don’t carry it with you into the depth. Don’t fall asleep in the act of telling someone off. Tell him off and clear the atmosphere, just like lightning clears the atmosphere. And then, in the silence of that room, in communion with your own heart, bring it into your mind’s eye, if it’s now seventy times seven, and just take another picture. And hear the voice of either the individual or a friend of that individual or some mutual friend telling you that the one is all of the things that you wanted for him. And then drop off, in confidence that that is a perfect picture and it’s done!

You don’t need anyone else. Paul came saying you need no intermediary between yourself and God. Rub out all intermediaries between yourself and God. When God revealed himself to him, he said, “To whom would I turn?” Then in that 6th chapter when they all left him and he turned to Peter, he said, “Would you go also?” He said, “To whom would I go? Have you not the words of eternal life?” (John 6:66). This drama is taking place in man. Peter finds him; because when Peter found him and named him, he said to Peter, Well, where do you get it? These are the words, “What do you think of the Son of man?” Instead of saying Son of man now, which is the title he always used, he said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He said, “Flesh and blood has not told you this but my Father who is in heaven has revealed it unto you” (Mat. 16:13-16). So he found him, and having found him to whom now would he turn? Because he made the most fantastic statement in that 6th of John: “Drink my blood, eat my flesh or you have no life in you” (verse 53). “My blood and my flesh are the words that I speak and they are living words”—feast upon them, assimilate them—“because no man can come unto my Father save through me.” They said, “That’s a hard saying; who can accept it?” and they all left him, never to walk with him again. So he turns to Peter, “Would you go also?” He said, “To whom, to whom would we go? Have you not the words of eternal life?” (verse 68).

These are things that you didn’t compose yourself; they are revealed from the depths of your soul. Just like that journey was revealed. I certainly didn’t sit down after having read the 42nd Psalm…I didn’t read the 42nd Psalm prior to it. I went back and searched the scripture for the experience. Because it happened to me in New York City on a night I didn’t really expect at all. In fact, you go to bed quite quietly and simply and these things happen. Then you go back to God’s word, the external witness, and see if you have any external witness to support the internal witness of the Spirit. Because you must have two witnesses, for only on the evidence of two witnesses shall a charge be sustained. So you have one witness, the witness of the Bible, that’s one external witness. But you can’t bring one, you must have two, and the second witness is the witness of the Spirit, where you have the identical experience, and then they agree in testimony. If two different ones agree in testimony, then that testimony is conclusive, it’s done. You can’t change that if two different ones agree. Well, the Bible is one and your experience is another, and they come together and they parallel. So you go back and you read the scripture. So when my eyes fell upon the 42nd Psalm, after the experience, I knew I had my two witnesses. I couldn’t deny my own experience and here is something written 3,000 years ago. So, I’ve come, as everyone has come, really, to bear witness to the scripture. I’ve come to experience scripture…but nothing else.

So I can do anything here in my outer dream if I know who I am; in the hope that night after night I will have the experiences of scripture until I completely fulfill them. For all that is written about me has its fulfillment and must be fulfilled in me. So then you go tomorrow into the world of Caesar once more. While you’re in the world of Caesar, why not be comfortable? Why not have a good income? Why not have all the lovely things in the world of Caesar? You don’t have to be saturated with it, but you can do it if you want to. The day will come you will not really want things. They’ll be there for the dream if you want a dream; but you won’t find security or think you want security in things, you won’t really. But while you’re in the world of Caesar dream the things. You have to pay taxes, pay rent and do all the things that you’re told in scripture. They asked him, “Do you believe in taxes?” He said, “Give me a coin. Well, whose inscription is that?” He said, “Caesar’s.” Alright, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Does he want taxes? Bring me the gold from that fishes mouth (Mark 12:15-17). He doesn’t say, I will not pay the tax—he knew he could simply dream anything. And so that same being spoken of in scripture is the being seated here tonight—when you say “I am,” that’s he.

So tonight you go back…just the few verses I quoted, read that 8th verse of 6th of Micah, and the 4th verse of the 4th chapter of Psalms, and then the 42nd Psalm (it’s a very short one). These are the only ones I pulled on tonight to illustrate this point that you can’t answer in the affirmative when the question is asked of you, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” So when it is asked of you in the future you can tell. You take the whole verse, the 5th verse of the 13th of 2nd Corinthians, so just the one verse, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith. Now test yourselves and see. Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if tonight you do what I ask you to do you’re putting it to the test. If tomorrow the results appear on your tree, then you’ve found him.

Now don’t forget him after you’ve found him. And keep on dreaming noble dreams day after day after day, not only for yourself but for everyone. See that it comes within the framework of these three fundamentals as named as the thing that God requires of every man: To be just, to be kind, and to live in quiet fellowship with your God. Not a thing you do on the outside. If you want to give to charity, give. It doesn’t mean a thing as far as the scripture goes. You have to live in quiet, wonderful, simple fellowship with your God. So whatever you do mentally see that it fits the framework of justice and kindness, that’s all. So if it is just then it’s right. Is it kind? Alright, if you are in doubt, ask yourself a simple question, “Would I want it done to me?” Well, no. Well, then that’s not for you; it doesn’t fit the frame. And then after it fits the frame, very simply commune with your own heart upon your own bed and be silent.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: ___(??) can you combine imaginal acts?

A: Certainly. For instance, if you have a desire for yourself and one for friends, would you celebrate if all came true—say a little party, a dinner party, a tea party, a cocktail party? I mean, if you had a party…say six or eight came together and they discussed their own good fortune and all are telling lovely things about what has happened to them…couldn’t you conceive of just such a little gathering where all are expressing their joy because of their good fortune? You simply listen to a voice, a familiar voice of one, go to the other one, go to the other one, just as though it were a party. Always do that which implies the fulfillment of the dream. But if you can’t bring them together take them separately. You can have a group picture, or you can have just simply a single picture of one party. But try it! You’re invited just to try it. You may stumble upon something that you can tell me that I can share with others, because it is infinite, as he unfolds his great secret. He is really your wonderful, wonderful Imagination. That’s why the great old man Fawcett, whom I quoted in my latest book, he said, “The greatest of all secrets is this great secret of imagining.” If one could only unravel that secret!

Q: In John 11, Thomas said, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” It came to me that the “him” could be Lazarus, rather than Jesus as in the preceding verse.

A: The story in that whole chapter is Lazarus and so you are right. They want to have the identical experience. It was not resurrection. That was restoration, where something that was dead was restored to life—because afterwards, the same one is writing the story of resurrection; because resurrection happens not at the end of one’s history, within it. And so, he went beyond the experience that he could tell the experience. And so, the 24th verse, he tells you that these are my words; he tells you these are the experiences of which I bear witness. He is witnessing all that he is recording in that book. It tells you that they are his words, and then he tells you at the very end, if everything that was done by him really were recorded, the world couldn’t hold the books. So he’s telling you of the unnumbered experiences because he’s speaking of the universal Christ. But man has seen a little Christ, not the universal Christ that is actually in all.

So there’s the descent; the ascent (which is the rising again); and then another descent that it may fill all things. So nothing can ascend unless it first descended, and the second descent is the dove, that you may fill all things. So the first is death: God became man that man may become God; that’s the descent of God, where you are nailed, actually nailed here, in ecstasy. Then you rise during the state when you awaken from the dream, but you do not break the dream as yet. Then you have all these experiences of restoring the body, as you’re told in the 11th of John; and then you go on with experience after experience until the very end. And then comes the descent, the second one, that you may fill all things, because you must fill all things when you break this wheel of recurrence, the very wheel of death. And so, John is really the cue…uh…Lazarus is the cue in the Book of John.

Q: Do you create these imaginal activities each night? Do you do it for a certain amount of time? ___(??) Sabbath?

A: Well, to me the Sabbath is simply satisfaction—he saw his work and it was very good, and he rested. A complete satisfaction with what I’ve done so I’m not anxious, I’m not concerned. It’s like becoming aware through symptoms of pregnancy…not a thing you can do after the symptoms of pregnancy are upon you. All you can do is simply wait for the appointed hour to be delivered of what you’re carrying. Any interference with it is going to produce, either mentally or physically, a miscarriage. And so, there will be no anxiety after you can reach the state of Sabbath. So, after he saw his work and pronounced it very good he rested and called it the Sabbath. So the Sabbath is a moment in time that follows satisfaction with what you’ve done.

Q: ___(??) Zechariah 13: “Two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.”

A: Give me an evening on that. Every time I speak, there’s always…if I speak to one or I speak to ten or I speak to a thousand, I have been promised in scripture: Elijah ran away and said, “There is no one” and he said, “Get on back, for there’s always my remnant.” So he ran, thinking when he left that city that was doomed there would be no one to hear him and hear the word of God, and he sent Elijah back, because he said, There is always my remnant. Wherever I send you there will always be a remnant to receive the word of God. The field must be prepared. And so, he may be the most brilliant man in the world, but the field is not prepared to receive the word of God. So he tells us in the 13th chapter of Matthew the four different soils in which the seed fell. These soils are only humanity, for he tells you by analysis the seed is the word of God, and man is that field on which the word of God is planted. Some reject it instantly—-that falls on the highway. Then some eagerly accept it, but it’s not yet prepared for it, so it springs up quickly but has no roots; not deep enough for the roots, because the soil has not been prepared properly enough. Then comes a third, and finally a fourth. It brings forth, and brings forth sixty and one hundred-fold, the properly prepared soil.

But you could be the most brilliant man in the world and be, relative to the Bible, the highway, where you have no soil whatsoever to accept the word of God. You could be a simple person, ignored by the world, and you can be seeded. This past year in Barbados I passed one of the most touching scenes. These two women on the street, they were without shoes, clothes clean but possibly their only dress, and one was holding the Bible this way. The other, mouth to mouth or mouth to ear, this one was telling her…she would quote the passage and this one would continue it. She had committed to memory the Bible just from sheer hearing it. She knew her Bible from one word, from the beginning to the end. So, when she makes her exit from here, to be instantly restored in another time sequence, in the depths of her soul she has the word of God. She may be put into another sequence where the Bible is not part of her world, not on the surface mind, but in the depth of her soul it’s been planted and so it will rise and she will have these experiences. So the word must be heard by man.

I saw these two in a very small little alley. There they were, undoubtedly, they might not even have been working, I don’t know. It was the time of day that if they were really on a job they’d be on the job, but there they were, almost in the gutter. One had the Bible open and the other was repeating it, word for word. She would say something—-it struck me so, like I can’t tell you the thrill that was mine to see them—-and she knew her Bible, from beginning to end. Chances are she could not read the normal paper…just from sheer hearing of the word of God. Well, when she makes her exit from this world, she, like all of us, will be restored and inserted into a time sequence best fitted for our unfoldment.

Until Tuesday…thank you.