The Identical Harvest
Neville Goddard
I am quite sure you are going to find this an interesting series. Tonight it is “The Law of the Identical Harvest.” In the very beginning, God established the Law of the Identical Harvest.
And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: Plants bearing seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, and it was so.” (Genesis 1:24)
Now we are warned, “Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked. As a man sows, so shall he reap.” (Galatians 6:7)
So, do not try for one moment to deceive yourself. All that is taking place in your world; you planted. There is only one Planter in the world, and the Planter is God, but man looks for God outside of himself, and we are warned that He is within us.
We are told to examine ourselves. “Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless, of course, you fail to meet the test.” (II Corinthians 13:5 RSV1)
So, within us is the Lord Jesus Christ! And we are told, “By him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3)
Now, where is He? Who is He? If He is in me and He is the cause of the phenomena of my life and everyone’s life, then where is He? I should find Him. It’s the most important search in the world – and I have found Him! Christ-in-you is your own wonderful human imagination. That is the Lord! Your every imaginal act is the planting of a seed, and the harvest is nothing more than the multiplication of the identical seed. You cannot change it.
How do I plant the seed? Well, I could plant it unwittingly, and most of us do. I read the morning’s paper, and I react emotionally. At that moment, I planted a seed! You tell me a story, and I react emotionally. At that very moment I’ve planted a seed, and I am going to reap it – the identical harvest.
Most of us do not remember. We do not remember the moment when we planted the seed, but every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems; it is a delusion of the withering vegetable memory. We cannot quite relate the harvest to anything that we’ve done.
Let me now tell you just a simple little story. On March the 7th of this year – the Log Angeles Times printed a little story about a lost church organ. The minister called in the detectives and announced that the church organ was stolen. He gave a description of the organ, to the best of his ability. They found what they thought to be the organ that was lost, but all identification marks were removed. The serial number and everything about identifying it for ownership had been taken from the organ. The minister said to the detectives, “Look into the back of the organ and see if you find a paperclip with a little piece of paper clipped to it and this number written on the paper.” The detective said “Why?” and the minister said, “I placed it there.” He said, “Why?” He said, “Just in case.”
Now, he is preaching the story of Christ. “Just in case …” That is when he planted loss, “Just in case.” To tell him that he was the source of the loss of that organ, he would strike you if he was bigger. Really, he was the cause of that loss, but you couldn’t tell him that. Yet he will repeat from the pulpit. “Be not deceived, for God is not mocked.” He will even quote Job, “My fears have come upon me.” (Job 4:14) For my imaginal acts, whether they be in love or in fear, they are seeds, and I must reap them.
I will give you one that is very personal. When I planted it, I do not know, but I had to have planted it. And I will show you that, even though you plant unlovely things unwittingly, you need not be the victim. You can revise it, and change it, even though you are confronted with a seemingly insoluble problem.
When I left here last year, in the month of July, I checked my two suitcases at the airport. When I arrived in Los Angeles, one was missing. The contents I could not replace for $1500. They were all the lovely dresses that my wife has, and all her dresses are made by a certain couturier in Beverly Hills, and not one is under $195. She has made these dresses over the years for her. They were not new, but I couldn’t replace them – any one – under $195 – plus other things in that suitcase. My suits were in another suitcase, perfectly all right. I recorded the loss. They said, “When we find it, if we find it, we will send it right over to you, Mr. Goddard.”
After five days and not a word, we called, and they said, “It is lost. We’ve made every effort, and it cannot be found. Put in a claim and send it off to San Diego, the headquarters for the PSA office.” My wife did the legitimate thing in the world of Caesar. She itemized the contents to the best of her ability and what it would take to replace the items in that suitcase.
That morning about 2:00 o’clock I awoke and said, “Now, look here. I teach this principle, and, so, I have brought about a loss in my own world. I will have none of it! I teach Revision. I heard what the man said over the telephone! ‘The thing is lost. They cannot find it; we have looked high and low.’ ”
Then you read in the papers that hundreds of millions of dollars are stolen every year at our airports, depots, and the wharves across the country, and it’s an inside job, as it were. So, at 2:00 o’clock in the morning I took in my hands my suitcase. I felt the weight of it; I could feel the weight. I could see in my mind’s eye the grey bag with the black leather. I could actually feel it, and I felt it with the sense of relief, for of all the pleasures in the world, relief is the most keenly felt.
When you are expecting someone, and they are late – someone you truly love, and they are late, and it gets later and later and you get anxious, and then you hear the familiar voice; you know the relief that comes. Well, now, that’s what you do when you feel that relief. And, then, I dropped it and got up and went into my living room and simply read my Bible.
It was early. We have a lovely apartment, and it was quiet. We have no neighbors. 1 turned on the lights and read my Bible. The next day: no report. The following day I received a letter postmarked San Francisco, a strange, peculiar hand printing my name: Neville Goddard. The address was correct. When I opened the letter, there was the little note in the same peculiar printing! “Your suitcase is in Box 524, Sorry. The Phantom,” and enclosed a key. So, I called the security guards at the Los Angeles airport, and I told them the contents of the letter. I said, “I have the key.”
“Well, we’ll investigate immediately,” which they did. They called back within a matter of five or ten minutes to tell me that there is no such box in Los Angeles. I reminded them that the letter came from San Francisco, so, he said, “All right, I’ll call you back.” He called San Francisco, and the security guards got the local police, and they opened 524, and there was my suitcase. They opened it up in the presence of the policemen, and the whole thing was ransacked – completely ransacked, utterly turned inside out. They sealed it and flew it down, and asked me to come over with my wife, and in the presence of the security guards in L.A. they would open my suitcase in my presence, which they did.
Not a handkerchief was missing! Everything was turned inside out. The man was most apologetic, and he said, “Mr. Goddard, I am awfully sorry. We are sorry for the Company. These things happen. We do not know how they happen, but they happen. May we clean the things for you?”
I said, “No, that is something that my wife and I do every year. We travel for more than two weeks. Everything we wear is dry-cleaned. So, it is a little problem of ours, and we’ve always done it.”
Then he gave me his personal card and said, “The next time you and Mrs. Goddard travel on PSA, you are our guests.” I took the card and gave it to my wife, and now we are here and going back as the guests of PSA. But we did not lose one handkerchief – not a thing, but it was a complete mess. What they were looking for, I do not know, but they found nothing there. However, that’s done.
My friend Freedom Barry – you all know Freedom2 . About three months ago Freedom called me. He was distressed; he was in a panic. He said, “Neville, my most precious possession is my grand piano. I can’t replace it for $4,000. It’s only insured for two. Well, it needed certain repairs, so I sent it back to the factory for the repairs. When it was done, they called me and told me they would not deliver it until I came to the factory and tried it and saw the work done, and then agreed to the work. It was a $400 job.”
So, he made the trip to the factory, tested the piano, approved it, and they said they would send it off, and the date given was a Tuesday for delivery. He remained in all day on Tuesday, but no piano. He remained in on Wednesday, and no piano. On Thursday he called, and they said, “We were waiting for a full load. That’s why we didn’t get it off on time, but it is off now. But, unfortunately, we can’t find either the truck or the driver. They have both disappeared.”
At that point Freedom panicked. He said, “You know, I am so close to the picture, I can’t do a thing. Were it another person, I could do it. But I can’t do it for myself, and the one person in this world I can turn to in confidence happens to be you. Will you aid me in bringing back my piano?”
I thanked him for the confidence he had in me, and then, as I hung up the telephone, I went into my bedroom, and proceeded to put myself into the mood of hearing his voice – I had just heard it – telling me that he has the piano. That night a lovely piano concerto was on. Every night between 8:00 aid 10:00 we have a station called KPAC, and they play two to three hours of lovely classical music. So, this night in particular they were playing beautiful piano concertos. So, I imagined it was Freedom. I sat there entranced with the beauty of this music, and I assumed it was Freedom playing; and then I turned it off just as it came to the end, so I would not hear who played it. I assumed it was Freedom. Then in my imagination I put my hands upon his shoulders and thanked him for the joy that he gave me and felt completely relieved in what I had done.
Two days later he phoned to say they had found the man. At first he would not reveal what he had done with the truck or its contents, but eventually he confessed, and they got the piano. So the piano is back in Freedom’s house. All it needed was a tuning because of the long ride and the extreme heat through the day and the cold at night. Now he has his lovely piano, and he treasures that piano more today than he did prior to the loss of the piano. It’s like a lost son coming home.
So, here we have a law. It’s a principle, and morning, noon and night you and I are operating this principle, and we can’t stop it. If the world seems confused today, it’s confused because we, the operant power, made it what it is. There is no power outside of man doing anything. Why? Because God became man, that man may become God! He actually became as I am, that I may be as He is! He’s not pretending that He’s Neville; He actually became Neville. He’s not pretending that He is you; He actually became you. And in you, He is your own wonderful human imagination, and one day you will know it. You will know it beyond all doubts in the world. When He completely awakens within you and His Son calls you “Father,” then you will know it. But until His Son calls you “Father,” and you know that relationship, try it. Test yourself to see whether you are holding to the faith. What faith? People say, “The Christian faith.” Well, what is the Christian faith? “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Well, do you believe that He is in you? “No.” Well, then, you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ! “Do you not realize that the Lord Jesus Christ is in you, and that there is no other lord?”
So, as Blake said:
“Babel mocks, saying there is no God or Son of God;
That Thou, O Human Imagination, O Divine Body of the Lord Jesus
Christ art all
A delusion; but I know Thee, O Lord, when Thou arisest upon
My weary eyes, even in this dungeon and this iron mill,
For Thou also sufferest with me, although I behold Thee not.
And the Divine Voice answers:
Fear not! Lo, I am with you always.
Only believe in me, that I have power to raise from death
Thy Brother who sleepeth in Albion.” (From “Jerusalem”)
That, I know from experience He can raise from death the One who sleeps in Universal Man, called Albion. One day you will experience it. You will actually experience the story of the Lord Jesus Christ! And when you experience it, you are the Lord Jesus Christ! You’ll experience it in a first-person, singular, present-tense experience; and His Son calls you, “Father.”
You say, “What! Jesus has a son?” He is a son,” the world will say. The world does not understand the mystery of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Father.
“Have I been so long with you, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How, then, can you call me and ask me to tell you about the Father? I’ve been so long with you, and yet you do not know me.3” “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
And then you will say, “But did he not also say, “The Father is greater than I?4 ” Yes; but the Lord is not inferior as to His Essential Being; only as to the office, as the one that He sent. But he tells us the Sender and the Sent are one. So, when you see me, you see Him who sent me but in the office of the Sent, I am inferior as to my Essential Being, the Sender who sent me.
And, so, he said his law holds good forever and forever. Well, what is his law? Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will. That’s the law. Whoever believes that what he says will come to pass, it shall be done for him.
Can you believe that? Can you actually believe that you can put your hand upon a friend and tell the friend you’ve never seen him look better, or hear him say he’s never felt better? Can you put your hand into his hand and congratulate him on his good fortune and have him tell you he’s never had more?
Here is a simple story. A lady called me about eight months ago, all excited. She said, “Neville, will you hear for me that I have ten million dollars? I will give you one million if you will hear for me that I have ten million. Well, I have known this lady over the years. In fact, I gave her away to her husband. She had no father, and she said, “Will you give me away?” I said, “Willingly, gladly.”
During the reception a lady came up to me and said to me, “Now, tell me, who are you?” I said, “I’m the bride’s father.” She said, “You are the bride’s father?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I paid for the service, but I saw you give her away. But, tell me now, who are you?” I said, “I am the bride’s father.”
“Well,” she said, “it so happens that I am the bride’s sister!” What could you do? She was the bride’s sister. But I did not know she had a sister.
However, she called and asked me to hear she had ten million dollars. About, I would say, two months ago she called up. She could hardly speak, with the excitement. She said, “You know, my brother – and this seems an incredible story – “received from this lady – a very, very elderly lady, the entire estate, and the estate is in excess of one hundred million dollars.”
Well, I didn’t ask her to hold her breath until an estate of that size was settled. The chances are she’ll be gone, and others will follow her. In an estate of that enormous amount, you will find all sorts of people claiming they are the mother, or her brother, or this, that, and the other. So, I didn’t say one word to her to in any way disillusion her. She was in the mood – a mood of enormous wealth, and she walked in that state, waiting for the brother to have the estate settled. Undoubtedly he promised her ten million of the hundred million, for he knew the value of the estate. But forget that part of it – she was in the mood of wealth. She called me one month ago, and this is her story, and this is, now, factual. She does not have to wait for this estate. She said, “You know, these two elderly ladies came into the meeting.” Her husband has a little church – not much bigger than this room, and these two elderly ladies in pants – not well dressed at all – you wouldn’t think that they could contribute a dime to the support of the little church. They said to her one day, “Do you have a mortgage on this place?” She confessed, “Yes, we have a mortgage.” “How much?” She told them, and they said, “All right, we will take care of it.”
They paid off the mortgage on the house and the church one hundred per cent, bought her a new car and gave her the pink slip, and set up a trust fund for one thousand dollars a month for the rest of her earthly days. You see, she was in the mood. She was in the mood of fantastic wealth. Whether that enormous estate is ever settled or not, or whether it is true or not, at least she was in the state that called in her, by that imaginal act, the same identical harvest.
If you would really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and pinpoint Him as your own wonderful human imagination – there is no other lord. He literally became as you are, that you may be as He is! The Incarnation took place at Calvary, not at Bethlehem. When God became man, that’s Calvary. That is the Incarnation, and He is not pretending. He had to completely empty Himself of all wisdom and all knowledge, and all power to become us! At Bethlehem, we become as He is. That’s the mystery.
And here tonight, if you know who He is and you trust Him one hundred per cent, you can turn to Him, for, “All things are possible to God” – all things. There is no restriction placed upon the power of God, if you know who He is. But if you have some little reservation – you will do this, but – well, then, don’t call. If you will say simply, “Well, I will ask three or four people, in case one fails,” you don’t know Christ.
If Freedom had called me and then, as he hung up, called a second or a third or a fourth person, he would have no confidence in my teaching – none whatsoever. But I know Freedom, or I would never have told him to come to this City and teach.
But I felt in Freedom the man I wanted him to be. And Freedom came here, and he taught and he is a wonderful teacher. He doesn’t teach the Promise because he hasn’t had the Promise. He’s had the Law, and he knows the Law. Well, when you are so very close to it, you find it difficult to operate.
Well, here is a hand. If the back of this hand began to itch, it can’t reach itself but what’s wrong with this? [Using the other hand to scratch] Can’t this come to its assistance and scratch it? There’s only one body. We are told, “There is only one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)
So, as one Body, he turns to an aspect of himself, which is the one body, and he turned to the aspect of his Body in whom he had confidence, and he called me. Well, at that moment I heard him, and then dropped it. You don’t do it day after day, you simply do it, and it’s done. There’s always an interval of time between a seed that is planted and the harvesting of that seed, so just drop it. You don’t pick it up every day to see if it’s really growing. You leave it, and the thing germinates, and then it comes into fruition in its own due time.
Unfortunately, we are not aware of the moment of the planting of the seed, and when the harvest appears, we deny our own harvest. We can’t believe for one moment that we did it.
Recently I read an interview with Mrs. Martin Luther King, the widow of the great evangelist, and she said the day that the late President Kennedy was assassinated, “My husband turned to me and said, “That is the way I am going to die. I, too, will be assassinated. He was a powerfully emotional being; he identified himself with that martyrdom. Whether he wanted to be a martyr for his own cause or not, I do not know. But her own words, “My husband said to me when he heard of the story of the assassination of Kennedy, ‘That’s the way I am going to be killed. I am going out just like that.’” Now, you tell that man that he did it, and the one who now serves 99 years was only the means by which his will was externalized, he would not believe it. There’s always somebody ready, waiting to aid the externalization of my will, and my will is a simple imaginal act – that’s all; and, then, you, if you can be used; if you are not in that state that you can be used, you will not be used against your will. But there are those who are falling into all kinds of states in this world. There are those who feel at home being a thief. Well, if I feel that I have lost something, the states occupied by men who believe themselves to be thieves they will fulfill my will for me. If I feel that I am secure, there are those in the world who will play their part and aid the birth of my feeling that I am secure. It’s entirely up to us. What are we doing?
Well, you cannot change this eternal Law of the Identical Harvest. You will find it in the very first chapter of the book of Genesis – the first chapter, 11th verse, “And God said, Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants bearing seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind … And so it was.” And not a thing has happened in the world to change that. It’s the same wonderful law.
So, whatever we are today, we are by reason of the fact that we are the Sower. People love to sow. But the comforting thing is this: that the Word of God has been sown, and no one can change it. And where is it sown? It’s sown in you. And the Word cannot return void, but must accomplish that which He purposed. For, in every child born of woman the Word of God has been planted, and that Word, in the fullness of time, will erupt and the story of God will unfold in the man in whom He has planted it. Then that man will know he is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s the most glorious thing in the world! If you suffer now because of your strange planting, all well and good, but bear in mind: the Word of God has been planted, and you cannot fail.
Not one child born of Woman in this world can fail to one day realize that he is God the Father. If one failed, the whole thing would fail. Not one can fail – no, not even a Hitler, not even a Stalin for behind the mask called a Stalin and the mask called Hitler, there is that Word of God that is perfect, and it will grow. And, one day, it will erupt. They have gone from this world only to our physical senses, but they haven’t really gone. They are in a world just like this, terrestrial, in a body that is new – unaccountably new, but a new body, in an environment best suited for the work yet to be done in them, for, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” So, the whole thing is the process of the unfolding of the Word in man. The day will come, and it comes with shocking suddenness.
Next Monday (July 20th) will be my eleventh birthday of my “birth from above.” Eleven years ago the 20th of July, I was “born from above” in this City in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. It’s true! The story is perfectly true as you read it in the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ.
He is buried in the holy sepulcher, which is the skull of man. One day, man awakes within his skull to find himself completely sealed, and he knows it’s a sepulcher. There he is, completely sealed! But he is the Wisdom of God and the Power of God, as Christ is defined in the story of the Bible. Because you are the Power of God, you have the power to come out and because you are the wisdom of God, you have the wisdom to know what to do. And you do come out – out of the tomb of your own skull! And all the imagery of Scripture surrounds you the babe, the witnesses – everything, and there you are – “born from above”!
And you are told, “You must be born from above; for unless you are born from above, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which means the New Age. But while you are here in this age, if you are not “born from above” before the so- called death takes place – death is only the passing through a door, but you do not die. Nothing dies! You pass through the door. Those who remain cannot see you beyond the door, but you aren’t dead; you are just as alive as you are here: in a body like this, only it’s young; not a babe – young, about 20 years of age, in an environment best suited for the work that you must still do. And, then, one day you are “born from above” and from then on, you enter an entirely different world – a New Age.
It’s not an area; it’s a body. And wherever you are, clothed in that body, everything is perfect. Nothing can remain imperfect in your presence, wherever you are! So, the Kingdom of Heaven is not an area. It’s not a realm. It is a body. Wherever you are, nothing remains dead. Everything is made alive and perfect. Trees that are long dead and turned to stone burst into flower as you walk by. Things that are completely wrong are perfect as you walk by! Seeds that are not growing spring when you go by. It’s a body.
So, the Kingdom of Heaven is a body! It’s the Perfect Body. It is the body of the Risen Lord within you, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, nothing can remain imperfect when you are “born from above.”
But tonight, in the practical world in which we live here, which will still be with you when you go through the gate called death – it will be the practical world – you will find this Principle still operating. Everyone who is not “born from above” will still be looking for this principle to find out how to make things come into his world that he wants. It’s a simple, simple principle.
You start knowing that your own wonderful human imagination is God. That’s the Lord Jesus Christ. Though I do not now know from actual experience, I will believe it, and then put Him to the test. I will test Him, and then you take a goal in life for yourself or for a friend and then persuade yourself that things are as you would like them to be. When you are self-persuaded that they are, you do nothing. The whole vast world aids in the birth of that assumption. All you need do is assume that things are as you want them to be, and in that state let it go, and all things move to aid the birth of your assumption, there’s no need to go to anyone.
First of all, the whole vast world is yourself “pushed out” anyway. There’s no need to get even. Just go “about your Father’s business” – just forget it, doing good. You won’t grow weary in the doing of good, for in due season you will reap if you do not grow weary.
So, even though you feel you have been wronged, forget it. When I put my mind on the one who did it, or who I thought did it – who signs himself “The Phantom,” I would still be looking for my suitcase. But I completely forgot that and when Caesar called, I turned to the Only One Who Never Fails, and that is one’s own imagination.
You see, we exist in physical bodies, but we live in imagination. You can’t get away from it. That is your immortal body. So, you live in imagination; you only exist in physical bodies. And these bodies will turn to dust, but they will be restored quickly – instantaneously, may I tell you. The world will say, “How do you know?”
Well, I know. I know from experience; I’m not speculating. I see my friends – those who have gone, and they are in a world just like this. I meet them. They are not “born from above” while they were here, and they are not yet “born from above,” now that they are there. And, so, I meet them, and I discuss with them and teach them this principle. But I cannot go beyond this, for then I will not be functioning in that sphere.
Having gone through the four dramatic scenes as discussed in Scripture, I’ve reached the end of the drama. But only now, while I am still anchored to this body, can I meet them at night when I put this thing [indicating the physical body] down and go to sleep. I meet my father, my mother, my brothers, and I instruct them concerning this principle. Then they are instructing themselves, and I hope here in the world you, too, will become teachers and teach, even though the body sleeps on the bed.
For what else should one learn? If you know there is a principle by which you can be what you want to be in this world, then what else is important? And you simply lead a nice, wonderful, free life, hurting no one, and just simply doing what you consider the good as you understand it – when you take it to heart and do not turn back.
Test yourself every day to see whether you are holding to the faith, and the faith is not: Do I believe in the Protestant faith or the Catholic faith or the Lutheran faith or the Jewish faith. No – do you believe in god? For god is in you. His name is in you, and He and His name are one, and His name is, “I AM.” That’s God.
So, when you say, “I am Mary,” all right, you have put something on it. If you say, “I am Larry,” you’ve put something on it. But His name is “I AM.” Well, you can put, “I am wealthy,” “I am happy.” You can put these attributes on it, and walk in the state of consciousness that you are actually this living state that “I am happy”; and in a way that you do not even know, you’ll be happy. You will be happy here while you seemingly are awake and you are happy there while you seemingly are asleep.
The day that you really awake – what a shock! Because if you tell the whole vast world that they are sound asleep, they won’t believe it. If I tell the whole vast world tonight, “You are sound, sound asleep, and the Dreamer in you is dreaming the dream, and the Dreamer is God,” they would think I’m insane. I would have told anyone who told me that, that they were insane too, until the day it happened to me. And when I, the Dreamer, awoke within my skull, I wondered, Who put me here? How long have I been here? And, here, all along, I had been dreaming, and the dream seemed so objectively real – so altogether real – that I didn’t realize it was all a dream, and that I find myself was the dreamer of the dream, and the whole vast world is simply playing the part they must play because of the nature of the dream that I was dreaming. Then I woke within myself to find who the Dreamer was. And the Dreamer was the Lord Jesus Christ!
We are told in Scripture to “leave everything and cleave to your wife until you become one,” and man thinks it means the woman that you marry. No. This is my emanation. This is “my wife.” I must cleave to it until finally the Dreamer and the thing it’s dreaming become one. But the Dreamer is the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, wherever there are two, you are one, and you can share what you’ve done as experience with others, but you don’t go around talking about it, because if anyone ever says to you, “Look, here He is,” or “Look, there He is,” don’t believe it, for you will never really know Jesus Christ until He looks just like you. When you see Him, He’s just like you, I tell you.
We are told; He is the Rock. “But of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful and forgot the God who gave you birth.” (Deuteronomy 32:18) And they ran from the supernatural rock, and the rock was Christ.
I tell you, that if the Rock of Christ is in you – and I know that it is – then the Rock is in you. And one day you will see that within that Rock there is a man, and when you see it, you will say. “Why, it is I!” You will actually see Him, and you will say, “Why it is I!”
The Rock became fragmented, and that Rock drew together all its different fragments and formed itself into the Human Form. And one day you will see it. It’s a human form that is seated before you. As you look at it, it glows; it’s alive, but with a face that you’ve never seen such a beautiful face like it before. You have never seen such strength of character with a face of majesty. You name it – the face has it in perfection. That is your face! It is you. And, then, the whole thing glows like the sun, and then explodes. That’s the Man-in-you. And the man is the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, we’re told in Scripture, if any man should say to you, “Lo, here is Christ,” or “Lo, there he is,” don’t believe him. Why? Because when He appears, we will know Him. Why? Because He will be like you – just like you; your face, beautiful as it is, raise to the nth degree of perfection – no blemish, and what character! You’ve never seen such strength of character as you will see on the face that is yours. You’ve never seen such majesty as you will see on the face that is yours, – such beauty as on that face that is your face.
So, the Rock as told you in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, is literally true. Sitting one day in the silence, contemplating nothing in particular, suddenly a rock of lovely quartz that size [indicating] came before me. I simply looked at it, not expecting anything, and suddenly it became fragmented – broken into numberless pieces, and then, like some magnet, drew all the pieces together into a man seated in the lotus posture. I looked at him, and suddenly I’m looking at myself and then I realize: This thing is alive, and something I could not in eternity ever hope to be the beauty, the majesty – and I’m looking at myself! And then it began to glow, and it glows and it glows like the sun and then it explodes, and you see the rock.
You might be familiar with that lovely poem of Robert Graves:
Hold fast with both hands
To that One Love which alone,
As you search the earth, restores
Fragmentation into True Being.
“That One Love which alone restores fragmentation into True Being.” Yes, that Rock was fragmented, and every part of the world is but yourself fragmented, and when you reach the end, you will bring it all back into the One being that became fragmented. And it’s your being – the Only Being.
Now let us go into the silence.