You Shall Be Gathered One by One

Tonight’s subject, as usual, is all about the reality we call God. We titled it “You Shall Be Gathered One by One.” Tonight I hope to make it a very practical picture.

Do not be ashamed of your own testament to our Lord, for our Lord, as far as I am concerned, is our own wonderful human Imagination. If you’ve experimented and you’ve proven it, then don’t be ashamed no matter what the world would say to tell it. I have just quoted from the 1st chapter of 2nd Timothy: Do not be ashamed of our testimony to our Lord. If you’ve proven it in performance so what does it matter if the whole world denies it? You tell it, because what you and I know from experience we know more thoroughly than we know anything else in this world…if we know it from experience. So don’t ever hesitate to tell it. In fact, the individual who has actually experienced God’s word cannot escape the responsibility of telling its meaning to others. He just can’t do it. He must tell it to everyone in the world for the simple reason we’re only one. There’s only one being in this world and that being, when one awakes, they call Jesus the Christ, the only being in the world. So you put yourself to the test—-not another, not testing another—-testing self. There is no other. And when you test yourself and it proves itself in performance, then because there is no other you share it with every being in the world.

The Old Testament is simply a series, the most marvelous permanent series of states through which you and I pass. The New Testament is its fulfillment. Last Friday night, I asked you who were here to read the 13th chapter of 1st Kings. I hope you did. I hope you read it seriously and contemplated it. If you were not here, and there is someone tonight who is here for the first time, or maybe was not here last Friday, let me give you the highlights. And behold, a man of God came from Judah and he came with a message. The message was the destruction of that which was not faithful to God. It worshipped false gods; it was the altar of Bethel, the house of God. But he was given a certain condition: He must not eat bread and drink water in the area that he came to pronounce this prophecy, and he must not return the way he came…he must not. In the story he was deceived by a false spirit; and so he ate of the bread of that area and he drank of the water. Then the prophet who had received the false message said to him, “Because you disobeyed the word of the Lord your God you shall not return to the tomb of your fathers.” In other words, he would die on his way back. And it was fulfilled. He was killed on his way back.

When you read that you wonder, “What is it all about?” Let me share with you what it’s all about, for I have experienced this in its positive state. I did not eat or drink in the area where I was sent to give a message, and I returned to the tomb of my Father. If you do not, you cannot return to the tomb of your Father. So let me share with you this strange and wonderful mystery. If you haven’t had it, you’re going to have it, because there is only one being in the world and that being is God…and you are God. You’re playing all of the parts in the world, and these are placed like an obstacle race and you and I pass through them, coming towards the ultimate end which is God awakening, that’s all. You begin as God, the way is God, the end is God…there’s nothing but God.

Well here, maybe ten years ago, I saw what I should not see if reason prevailed, for I’m seeing the most wonderful interior of a fabulous building. Consciousness followed vision, and I stepped into the vision that I contemplated, and I explored. Then I saw two ladies and I told them, “Ladies, this is a dream, this is a vision.” They were afraid. They were frightened because to them that world was no vision, that was real like this it was solidly real. Yet I knew the origin was vision, and because all ends run true to origins, if the origin was a vision, the end is vision. So I told them this whole vast world is a dream and I am the dreamer of the dream. Well, they were afraid, they were frightened, and they got as far as they could from me; and then when they got out of sight practically they ran. I did not eat their bread. To eat of one’s bread is to believe one’s beliefs. They told me that what I said wasn’t true. I was adamant. I believed it implicitly because I saw it. It began as a vision, the end must be vision. So I was not diverted by their behavior, therefore, I did not eat of their bread. I did not drink the water of their truth, because they believed that they were living in a solidly real world as this is real.

And I returned not the way I came. How did I return? I stepped into that world as I came onto this stage tonight. I walked onto this stage tonight; that’s how I walked into that world. But I didn’t return walking from that point in space back to where I was on my bed. This is how I went back…another vision. Many years before, I found myself in a dream, and I knew it was a dream, but I prolonged the dream ’til I got to a stationery object. It was a huge pillar driven into the sea, a pillar about that ___(??) in diameter and I felt that if I could hold it—-it’s stationary, it’s not a movable object like an animal or something, say man, it was simply stationary—-if I could hold it and not let it go, I may prove to myself what inwardly I knew. I felt that if I in a dream could hold an object and not let it go and make myself wake, I would awake in the dream. I found myself in water and there were these pillars driven into the sea. The bridge that it formerly supported was gone, but the pillars remained. And I held it, I wouldn’t let it go, and I made myself awake, and I awoke in my dream. I was just as awake as I am now in this room. I am no more awake now in this room than I was then when I held this pillar. And I knew that feeling was the secret…if I could but touch it.

And then memory returned…I went back to the 27th chapter of Genesis. These fantastic stories…empires come and go but the truth of the word of God remains forever. Isaac is blind and he said to the voice that he heard, “Come close, my son…you sound like my son Jacob, come close.” So Jacob came close. He said, “Who are you?” and Jacob answered, “I am your son Esau.” “Come close, for I am blind, I cannot see.” So Jacob clothed in skins to resemble his brother Esau came close and the blind father touched him and the blind father said, “Your hands feel like Esau and you have the smell of Esau, but you sound like Jacob.” But I will now pronounce the blessing based upon feel. And he pronounced the blessing and he gave reality to what he felt, and Jacob supplanted his brother Esau. Jacob means “the supplanter.”

So I felt this thing and I felt it to be solid. When I touched it my hands didn’t go across each other and meet this way, they simply were as far apart as the object of my vision, and I held it and I wouldn’t let it go. I said, Wake, come on, wake up! and I woke. I woke in my dream and my dream was just like this, just as real as this. Then I waded ashore. As I waded ashore onto this tropical isle—-not the Caribbean for I know them well. I do not know the Pacific as of this moment in time, but it seemed to me like the Pacific, homes built on stilts, either to avoid the animals or to avoid floods, but what I don’t know. Homes were built on stilts. As I got ashore, I saw a strange looking animal, a horrible looking thing, and it came towards me. Then I returned by a way I did not come. I was frightened out of my wits as it were. So the statement “frightened unto death” isn’t really far off, amiss. As it came towards me I was simply frightened, and then I broke the entire thing and found myself back on my bed. But the world from which I returned was just as real as the world to which I returned. So I know that it started as a dream, the end must be a dream. It started as vision, the end must be a vision. This is just as much a vision. It started as a vision and the end is a vision, and we are the dreamer of the dream, and that I do know. I know it from my own personal experience.

Now in the 13th chapter that I asked you to read of 1st Kings he was warned not to eat the bread of that place and drink the water of that place. He was deceived by a lying spirit, and he ate the bread and drank the water. Then the old prophet said to him, “Because you’ve disobeyed the word of the Lord your God you shall not return to the tomb of your fathers” and so he was killed on the way. Had I not obeyed the voice of God the body to which I returned would have been dead. I returned to this body. When I told the ladies the whole thing is a vision and the end is a vision, they did not believe me. Their disbelief would have caused me to actually live in that world of reality. It seemed so real just like this. I would have feasted on their beliefs of that reality and not been faithful to the message that I brought, which was: It began as a vision; the end is a vision, for all ends run true to origins. I remained faithful to my message that I took. So when I came back the body was cataleptic…it was dead. I entered it…I’m a living presence in a dead body…I animated it after how long I do not know. But I animated it and it returned, it was restored to life.

Then I experienced the 11th chapter of the gospel of John. That’s the story of John the Baptist. No “other” did it; there is no “other”; you are Jesus Christ. So when Jesus Christ restores the body and makes it once more alive, it is from within, it’s not from without. “Jesus Christ in you is the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in thee?” Not outside animating you (2 Cor. 13:5). So I returned and found the body dead, but I did not disobey the word. I delivered a message. The message is: The whole thing is a dream, it’s all a vision, for it started as a vision and the end must be a vision. And then they tried to give me other bread and other water. But their world is real and it was real. This is no more real than that world, may I tell you. This little thing here, this lectern, is no more solidly real than the things I touched in that world. But I did not forget the origin of the whole thing: it was all vision. So I couldn’t forget the origin and the end had to be consistent with the origin.

So I did not eat of their beliefs, I did not drink of their truth, and I did not return the way I came, for I walked into that world just as I walked into here tonight. But I returned by a way I discovered years before that—the way of feeling—where I actually felt this huge pillar and woke within a dream. And so I knew if I could now feel a pillow behind my neck and actually feel it, I would return by the way I did not come. So I felt a pillow under my head while standing in this hallway, and then in a little while I could feel the pillow, and instead of being vertical I was horizontal. And I am in a dead body: This body here that is now animated was cataleptic and dead. I came into it in a dead body. How long I remained trying to animate it I don’t know. Could have been a minute, could have been an hour, I don’t know. I only know that after awhile the little finger could move, and then the wrist could move, and then the elbow could move, and then the body could move, and finally I, with tremendous effort, I could open the eyelids.The eyes opened upon a familiar scene that told me I was back in my home on El Camino in Beverly Hills. So I returned not by the way I had gone into the other world.

The command was, “a man of God suddenly appeared…” Where? He appeared from Judah. The word Judah is spelled Yod He Vau Daleth He. The name of God is in the name—Yod He Vau He is in the name of Judah. Only one letter is put into it—-other than Yod He Vau He—-and that letter is Daleth. Daleth is “a door.” He said, “I am the door” (John 7:9). You get it? Who sent him? The word Judah is defined as “he himself”; it’s defined as “the hand, the creative hand of God.” If there is one thing in this world that separates man from the whole vast world of creation it’s the hand. A monkey thinks it has a hand…or you think it has a hand…no, it’s used only to convey food to its mouth and to swing from branch to branch. A man’s hand fashions. You could be the most brilliant being in this world, without a hand you could only be a smart monkey. It takes a hand to create in this world, and the hand separates the whole vast world of creation from man. Man is God! He has a hand, he can fashion, he can create. No matter how brilliant the mind is, if you didn’t have a hand you could not express yourself.

So the word Judah—-Yod He Vau Daleth He—-is defined as “a hand, dominion, power, that creative power that is God.” So when you are told, Behold, a man of God came from Judah, came from what? He himself came. But in these stories of the Old Testament they are told negatively, and so you do not return the way you came. You fail to be faithful to the vision. You entered a world that was real, so real you’re carried away with the reality of it. And so, when you told your story, and they showed you how real it was and you could actually test the reality of it, you forgot the origin, you forgot God. For, the origin of it was the dreamer, and the dreamer is God. It started in you as a dream. That dreamer which is yourself is God. You didn’t forget it (after awhile) that it started as a vision and therefore it still is a vision. So you did not go into a false god. So when the man of God came, in the Book of Kings he came to destroy the altar that worshipped false gods. They were carried way. And he ate of the bread of the world into which he came. It seemed so real he partook of it. He drank the water of that world, the truth of that world he partook of it, and forgot the origin of it all. So on his way back he did not return by another way. He came back and he was killed on the way.

In the New Testament, the positive aspect of it is: He did not return the way he came; he remembered. He remembered the cause of it and, therefore, the end of it must be equal to the cause. In the Book of Zechariah, which is almost at the very end, the 38th book of the Old Testament, “On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.” The word Zechariah means “Jehovah has remembered.” He remembered. He didn’t forget the origin of the phenomena of life, he remembered. His name is one. We’re all one. And that one, when we awake, we will call Jesus the Christ, and you and I are he. As we actually awake we are he. So I told you a week ago that the one whom he loved is the one that he restored to life. It didn’t fail, memory returned. So he came into a dead body. And the story is told as though someone on the outside awoke him; no, not someone on the outside—from within himself. He was faithful to the vision and he returned and came out, for he is Jesus Christ. He had not yet realized the grand turning point which is resurrection—that comes after—but he restored his body to life.

A friend of mine in San Francisco last September, a surgeon, and he told me that ten percent of all autopsies reveal no cause of death. Now you will see who they are who were not faithful to the vision. So they fell asleep one night and suddenly vision took place, and they went into the world that they contemplated, and it seemed so real. And it is, may I tell you, there’s nothing in this world more real than these worlds into which you step. And the world is so real they are carried away with the reality of it and they eat of the bread and drink of the water of that world and they never get back. They never return to the tomb of their father, for the tomb of the father is this body. We are buried in it. We are the fathers and we’re buried in these bodies. You never return to the tomb of the fathers as told you in the 13th chapter of 1st Kings. But if you do not eat of that world and accept the solid reality of it, as we do here, you will return by a way you did not come. May I suggest, if this night you have not had the experience or you can’t bring it back and you find yourself moving into such a world, the way back is feeling. You feel anything in this world—which is the world of your father, for this body is the tomb of the father—so anything that is familiar here and you touch it and you don’t let it go and make yourself wake within, you awake here in this tomb. If it takes you a minute or an hour or longer, you will activate it, you will animate it. You will restore it to life in this world, and they won’t take your body to the morgue and cut it up to find no cause of death.

And I am told this is a universal picture, that all over the world those who operate on dead bodies as they do day after day to find the cause of death—-especially in a world where everyone is insured they must for insurance reasons find out some cause—-and ten percent reveal no physical cause of death. They are the ones who did not obey the command of the Lord, not to eat and drink in the place where you are sent…just give the order. In my case, I was sent to tell them the world is a vision; that I know it because it just happened to me. It started as a vision, therefore it still is a vision and the end is a vision. And they didn’t believe me. But in spite of their disbelief they did not persuade me to modify my conviction. I was persuaded and remained convinced that it is a vision, and I returned convinced, and animated my body. Therefore, that was the story of Lazarus (John 11, 12). He was the one that Jesus loved you’re told, and Jesus is the reality of every being in the world. Jesus is the true identity of every child born of woman. It’s called the soul of man and the soul is the animating principle of a being. It animates anything and makes it alive. That’s Jesus Christ.

So here in this fabulous world…he goes on in the very end of the story, in the Book of John we’re told, it is he, the one he loved who now tells the story. He tells us all these words are written by the one who testified to the truth of these things. Only a very small section of the tradition of Jesus Christ is recorded. He tells us in the very last verse, if everything that he did were recorded, the world itself would not be big enough to hold the books (21:25). These are the experiences that you pass through. So I say everything in scripture is true. The Old Testament is simply, these are states, eternal states through which you and I pass. I can share it with you. I would be amiss if I did not this night tell you of my personal experiences. For the individual who has experienced the Word of God, I can’t see how he can avoid or escape responsibility of telling the meaning of that experience to others. So you read it as something that took place a thousand years or 2,000 or 3,000 years ago to find you experience it, and it’s contemporary, it’s taking place now. It’s not something that happened 3,000 years ago, it’s happening now as we become more and more radiant as it were, and begin to awake.

So we are told in the last book of the Old Testament, “A son honors his father. If then I am a father, where is my honor?” (Mal. 1:6). A son honors his father. If then I be a father, where is my honor…where is my son? And you turn over the page, you come into the New Testament and you find the son. So the last book, the thirty-ninth book, Malachi, which means “the messenger or the angel of God” and the angel of God was strictly called Jehovah Elohim: God himself. But here was the grand forgetfulness, the dream. He knew the story in the depth of his soul but he hadn’t found the son. And then comes the fulfillment of it, as you turn the page over, and here you come into Matthew. Matthew shows you who the son is that honors the father, and I and my father are one. Then comes the unfoldment of the picture.

So tonight, may I tell every one of you, if you have an experience don’t conceal it. Any experience that you have of the word of God, scream it from the housetops, no matter who believes it. Because tomorrow—-maybe in twenty-four hours or twenty-four years, when I do not know—-you, too, will find yourself opening, and the eye within you will open, and as they open you are seeing a world just as real as this. Consciousness will follow vision and you will step into that world, and you will be tempted to feast on the reality of that world, for it’s not less real than this. And if you do, you will not return…not to the tomb of your fathers. They will find your body and they will call it dead. If you do not feast and remain faithful to the vision—-the origin is a vision, therefore the end is a vision; and you tell them whether they believe it or not—you will come back knowing that in this world that seems not more real than that, it too is a vision. And this whole thing here is a vision. For the origin of it was as much a vision as the origin of that world. That is as real as this was vision.

Then one day you will awake for the last time and you will 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. 4:6). And so when you close your eyes here, after your faithfulness to deliver your message, and your return to re-animate and restore this garment—like a Lazarus coming out of the tomb—you will have, before you make your exit here, you will have the experience of the true resurrection, which is not described in any page of scripture. It’s only mentioned but not described.I have described it to you to the best of my ability in my latest book. I am now bringing out a little tiny pamphlet, not bigger than the size of The Search, where the whole thing is confined to the four acts of the unveiling of God’s image. When my friend Jack will bring it out, I do not know…it’s entirely up to him. But I gave him the script confined completely to these four scenes. It is not described in scripture. I have made every effort to the best of my ability to describe it in detail just how I experienced it.

For I know that everyone in this world…now he who wrote that story and the four evangelists did not describe the event. They named it but they didn’t describe it. And I feel no compunction to be, I would say, modest about it. Whether the world believes it or not, I have told it in detail just as it happened to me and given the scriptural support for the event, knowing that there is only one of us in the world: Everyone in the world is Jesus Christ. If you have the works of Blake, the 38th plate of Jerusalem : “We live as One Man; contracting our infinite senses we behold multitudes, or expanding, we behold One Man”—only one man if the centers begin to expand—-“and that One Man we call Jesus the Christ; and he in us and we in him live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life, giving, receiving and forgiving each others’ trespasses” (line 17). Only one man when the senses begin to expand. The whole vast world is one man.

I saw it one night with Blake. Blake tells you he dined with Isaiah and Ezekiel. May I tell you, I didn’t dine with him, but I certainly spent the night with him…yet he died a hundred-odd years before I was born, seemingly. But I wasn’t born in 1905. As you’re told in scripture, “Before the world was I am.” So we are all in one before that this world began. And Blake showed me so clearly how to fall and to look. So I took his advice and I fell backwards like some meteor falling through space. I came to a moment of stillness, and looked as he told me how to look. I saw one man; the man’s heart glowed like some living ruby, and he glowed. I contracted my senses and there were multitudes of nations within one man. I expanded it, I saw one man, and that one man was myself containing the whole vast world of humanity. All races, all nations, every one was contained within the one man. And one day, you’re going to see yourself containing the whole: Only one man and that one man is Jesus Christ. So if anyone should ever tell you, “Look, there he is!” or “Here he is!” don’t believe it (Mark 13:21). Why? Because, “Although it does not now appear what we shall be, we know that when he appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). When you see him it’s just like you, and it contains the whole vast world of humanity.

So tonight I’ve shared with you two great secrets. One in the negative state, the 13th of 1st Kings—-that if you are not faithful to the message you take into that world when you step into it, you will not return to the body of your father, to the tomb, which is this. If you are, you’ll return (that’s the 11th chapter of the Book of John), you’ll return and although it seems dead you will animate it, you’ll make it once more alive and restore it to life. You will do it, for you are Jesus Christ. But you’ll go through to the very end and then you’ll write the story, because you will have the experience of the true resurrection. That’s restoration [Lazarus]; that’s not resurrection. You will have the true resurrection not recorded in any book in scripture, and you, too, will tell it just as it happened to you. And so you’re told, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me” (John 21:22). And this is the disciple whom Jesus loved, who testifies to all these things and who has written all these words. And we know that his testimony is true.

So you, too, will tell it. You write the entire story and leave it behind you, because you’re departing from this world for the last time. But because you are every being in the world you can’t be detached from it. You become one of those Blake spoke of “Those who in Eternity contemplate on death,” knowing that “what seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be” (Blake, Jer.,Plt. 36). You contemplate on it, because they actually become what they contemplate and believe; what seems to be is to those to whom it seems to be. You become one with the immortals, the eternal beings who contemplate on death, knowing and waiting eagerly to step beyond and redeem one in the body of Jesus; for there is no other body into which anyone can be redeemed. All eventually become one being, one body and that body is Jesus Christ.

Now let us go into the Silence.

First of all, before we take questions, my friend Jack has a small book at a ridiculous price, one dollar and fifty cents. It’s only the Bible. Who arranged it no one knows, so I’m told, so there’s no royalty on the book. It’s arranged in 365 days for a daily reading. The first page you may completely discount, it’s just a little thought by Billy Graham, but he didn’t write the book. It’s all Bible, no one word in the book is other than the Bible. A week ago they gave me this sample copy that someone sent them. I must tell you it’s perfectly marvelous. Pick it up at random and read any page…only the Bible…and the way they’ve arranged it, Old and New Testament all in the book. Not one word is changed and no comments, no commentary, no analysis, just a simple lovely arrangement in a peculiar manner. So the first page by Billy Graham, you can tear it up if you want to (unless you like him), but the book itself, this simple little thing, for only a dollar and a half. So, it isn’t one nickel in my pocket, but I so liked it that I would like to share it with you. It’s called Daily Light. He doesn’t have more than a dozen. Why he doesn’t have more I don’t know, but it’s a little wonderful book of 365 days ___(??), morning and evening. You have a morning reading and an evening reading.

Now, are there any questions?

Q: Neville, in referring to what you said about this autopsy thing, ten percent, does that imply that ninety percent of the people then know what you’re talking about?

A: No, I wouldn’t say that. No, Bill, I wouldn’t say that. I just said, my friend the doctor who is a surgeon when I told him of my experience in answer to a question from the audience, after the meeting he said to me, “You know, we as doctors…I’m a surgeon, I’m in surgery every day of my life…I am called upon to perform numberless autopsies. And I share my experience with you as I share it with all the doctors when we get together at our conventions, and this is a universal statement, whether you be in China, Africa, America, Europe, no matter where you are, ten percent of all autopsies reveal no cause of death.” So someone can’t get back. In other words, they feasted on the bread and the water of the world into which they stepped. And may I tell you, that world is just as real and as solid as this. But if you forget your message—-it began as vision therefore the end is vision—and you’re trying to awaken everyone in the world. So you tell them, “Ladies, this is a vision.” Well, they’re scared to death. They don’t believe you. So you tell them it is a vision, it started as a vision, and therefore the end must be a vision; for all ends run true to origins: “See yonder fields, the sesamum was sesamum, the corn was corn; the silence and the darkness knew, and so is a man’s fate born” (Arnold, Light of Asia).

So it began that way, the end is that way, all ends run true to origins (Gen. 1:11,12). So you scream it. They don’t believe you. But you don’t feast on their disbelief and now forget the origin. And you come back not the way you entered that world. You walked right into it, as I walked in here, but you don’t, you feel your way back into this. As I told you earlier, when I held the post that was driven into the sea and wouldn’t let it go, I made myself awake holding a stationary object. I awoke in the dream to prove the origin is a dream and the end—-though solidly real and I’m waking in a world and it’s just like this—-it still must be a dream. And so, you can take anything here and hold on to it, and don’t let it go until you awake in it! Whether it be money that you want in this world, fame that you want, anything that you want in this world, hold on to it, and give it reality in your imaginary hand; for Imagination is sensation, really…you can feel the thing, you can actually feel it. Well then, don’t let it go. Though you can’t see it, feel it anyway. “Come close, my son,” said Isaac, “come close, that I may feel you,” for he’s blind, he can’t see. And so this one comes clothed like his brother Esau, and he puts upon himself skins with hair on it. He comes forward and Isaac said, “Come close. You sound like Jacob, but come closer that I may feel you.” He uses the word feel with emphasis. He said, “You feel like my son Esau and you smell like him (he brought two senses to play), although the voice sounds like my son Jacob.” But he pronounced the blessing upon what he felt because he couldn’t see.

So you can’t see right now your success, but what would it feel like? What would you feel in this world were it true? Hold onto it. That is a solid reality. I’ve proved it, for I found myself in water and I knew it was a dream, and I prolonged the dream until I came to a pillar. I felt, now I’m going to hold this pillar solidly, I’m not going to let it go, and make myself wake within it. And I held it and I wouldn’t let it go. Then I awoke within my being and I’m standing in water, just as wet as any water in this world. And I waded ashore in a world just like this, having held (like Esau) he made something he felt and touched real. That’s the story. So I’m sharing with you. So to repeat myself, the individual who has experienced God’s Word cannot escape the responsibility of telling its meaning to others.

Goodnight.