This talk by Neville Goddard
delves into the spiritual nature of man and his ultimate destiny: to inherit God. Through personal anecdotes, biblical interpretations, and deep reflections, Goddard sets forth the following thesis:
Main Theme: The purpose of life is to discover our true identity as God, a process that is likened to the hatching of an egg.
Key Points:
The Voice Within: There is an inner voice, the voice of divine authority, that guides man to truth. This voice reveals that the purpose of everything is "to hatch" - to give birth to God in man.
"Well, tonight's theme is 'To Hatch.' There is a voice in man that, if you listen and wait for it, you will hear at rare intervals. It is the voice of authority and it never lies."
The Friend's Experience: A friend of Goddard's, scarred by the loss of his father at an early age, experiences a profound transformation upon hearing the inner voice that reveals to him: "I took my father away so that I could discover who the Father is." This revelation allows him to see his life in a new light, understanding that everything was orchestrated for his spiritual awakening.
The Spiritual Genealogy: The genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1 is not physical but spiritual. It represents man's journey toward divinity, where he first becomes his own father and then the father of his father, culminating in the realization of being Abraham, the father of multitudes.
"This genealogy is not physical; it is totally spiritual, the whole Bible is spiritual."
The Mystery of Christ: The mystery of Christ lies in the fact that he is not an external being but man's own divinity. The experience of awakening as Christ reveals unity with God the Father.
"And heaven is within you." From within you will come this Father, and when he comes, you are he."
The son who calls "Father": The confirmation of having inherited God is given when the son of God, David, stands before man and calls him "Father." This undeniable and unmatched experience seals unity with divinity.
The power of desire: To manifest anything in life, including spiritual awakening, requires an intense desire, a "divine lust" that drives man toward his goal.
"You must desire it, because God longs to give himself to everyone, as if there were no one else in the world, only God and you; and finally, only God, because you are God."
Conclusion:
Goddard's speech is a call to introspection and self-discovery. He invites us to listen to the inner voice, to recognize our true identity as God and to understand that life, with all its experiences, is an incubation process that culminates in the hatching of our divinity.
Lecture
12/8/64
Well, tonight’s subject is “For Hatching.” There is a voice in man that if you listen to it and expect it, you will at rare intervals hear it. It’s the voice of authority and it never lies. Over the years I have heard this voice. It has never led me astray and everything that it prophesied has come to pass, but everything. So, in the Silence…and you are not concerned but you ask a question—it may come or it may not come that night—but you ask the question “What is the purpose of it all?” You do not question for one moment that God is, for you met God, you know God; you were embraced. But this was a moment of not I said concern, just in not even an idle moment, you ask the question “What is the purpose of it all?” and the voice answers in the depth of your soul, “For hatching.” For hatching what? For hatching everything in the world, like a huge big egg, but specifically for hatching God—God in man, brought to the surface as that man in whom he is buried. Like the old hymn of Isaac Watts: “Wrapped in the silence of the tomb the Great Redeemer lay, ’til the revolving skies bring the third, the appointed day.”
Now let me share with you an experience given me this week by a friend of mine, where he was brought to the third, the appointed day. For the purpose of life is to find God and God, when you find him, is God the Father, that’s God. “In many and various ways,” we’re told, “God spoke to our fathers through the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us through a Son” (Heb.1:1). If he spoke to us through a Son, then he’s Father. As we are told in the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi, “A son honors his father. If then I be a father, where is my honor?” says the Lord of hosts. Where is my son if I am a father? I have no way of knowing that I am a father unless there is a son to bear witness to the fact that I am his father. So, if a son honors his father and I be a father, where is my honor, where is my son? So here, “Wrapped in the silence of the tomb the Great Redeemer lay, and then the revolving skies bring forth the third, the appointed day.”
So this friend will allow me to tell you the story. And to give you just a little background, just a few words, he said, “My father died when I was eight, and my world was shattered. I felt an outsider. Every family in the neighborhood seemed to be a complete unit, but I felt an outsider, and I took this feeling with me into school. I was never once a part of the student body, always an outsider. When I left school I took the same feeling with me into business; and though I worked for very large companies and I served them well, and they were good to me, still I was never part of the company, I was always an outsider. This feeling of being an outsider drove me to the point of suicide, and this feeling also caused me to hurt those I loved dearly. Those I love most in this world I seemed to have hurt by the feeling of being an outsider.
“Well,” he said, “three months ago, the most authoritative voice, this thunderous voice, spoke from within me and the voice said, ‘I took away your father that you might find out who the Father is.’ Several weeks later, the voice repeated that sentence, ‘I took away your father that you might find out who the Father is.’ And then a few weeks later with even a greater authority and a still louder voice it spoke the same thing but it changed the pronoun.” This is the change, and listen to it carefully, “I took away my father that I might find out who the Father is.” Everything is a plan. He said, “When I awoke, I reflected on my life, and I saw it, the entire life, in a beautiful light, as I’ve never seen my life before. Prior to that it was one of sadness, one of loneliness, one of chaos, one of confusion; and now I saw everything perfectly ordered, everything precisely ordered, everything done as it ought to be done, because I, for purposes known at the moment of my decision, I decided to impose upon myself that state. And so, I took away my father that I might find out who the Father is. For the outside father is but a symbol of authority, a symbol of power, and I had to find that power, that authority within myself. I knew I couldn’t find it on the outside, so I took away the outside symbol. I didn’t know it when it happened, I was but eight, and here, everything was ordered, everything was a plan that I may find in me the power and the authority represented by a father.”
You’re told in scripture in the 23rd chapter of the Book of Matthew, “Do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven” (verse 9). In spite of this, we have organizations the world over who will simply promote people as teachers, as priests of the world, and first thing they want to be called is “father.” And they all accept it, from the top down they’re all called “father.” And yet we are told in this Book of Matthew, “Do not call anyone on earth father, for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” In the same gospel we are told, “And heaven is within you.” From within you this Father will come, and when he comes you are he.
Now, what is this whole plan? We are told, “As I have planned it, so shall it be, and as I have purposed it, so shall it stand” (Is. 14:24). Purpose, in the strict sense, is “the deliberately conceived plan proposed for action, or to be realized in it.” A plan proposed for action, or else to be executed in it. And so, no one can stop the plan of God from coming to pass. Well, what is his plan? Listen to it carefully: “They shall have no inheritance; I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession”, the 44th chapter, the 28th verse of the Book of Ezekiel. That I inherit God, that God is my possession…that is the plan.
Now, he speaks of an anger—my friend used the words “chaos, loneliness,” all the things that you would associate with an angry God. It was not an angry God as he knows today. But the Bible speaks of anger: “And the anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his mind. In the latter days you will understand it clearly,” here from the Book of Jeremiah, the 23rd chapter (verse 20). And so, in the latter days you will understand it clearly. It cannot turn back until it executes and accomplishes the intents of its mind, and the intent is that you and I inherit God. Well, God is father. It was revealed clearly in the New Testament. It is mentioned in the Old but not revealed. In the New it is completely revealed. But man will not see it, or, at the moment, he feels himself unable to grasp it.
Now, let us go to the first book of the New Testament. “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mat. 1:1). That’s how the book begins. When you read it you wonder “What is it all about?” For if you read it, he’s supposed to be the son of Joseph, and David is supposed to be the son of Jesse, and Abraham the son of Terah. And here we find this opening wonderful dramatic statement: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Well, every rabbi would admit that if in the genealogy of Messiah you mention Abraham and David, these would be the high-water marks, no question about it. For all would concede that it was to Abraham and his seed that the promises of God were made, no doubt about it as you go back and read the promises. So here, on that they will agree—but Jesus Christ the son of David? It isn’t mentioned in scripture. Then what is it all about? As I stand before you tonight, I am not theorizing, I speak from experience and I know this is true. But when man begins to awake, he first becomes his own father; and then he becomes his father’s father. To become my own father, David being my father, because I’m David, to become my father’s father, and if Abraham be his father, then I am Abraham, the father of the multitudes.
Now, is this true? I tell you it is true. This genealogy is not physical; it’s all spiritual, the entire Bible is spiritual. Man not knowing that he tries to trace it in a physical line and it’s not a physical line. The whole thing is spiritual. Man had no idea that this was altogether true, that man would eventually inherit God. He would actually awake to find himself the being that he formerly worshipped as something on the outside, to discover it is himself. And there was no way in eternity that he could ever reveal it to himself save through a son. That no one knows, “No one has ever seen God; but the only begotten son in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). And you are taught to believe it was, and the Bible will tell you, that is, the priests will tell you that it was Jesus Christ. It isn’t so. They’ll tell you, yes, Jesus was his son. Every priest in the world, every minister I’ve ever met, if I ever have an argument with them it is because of this point. All I can say, “You haven’t had the experience.” When I quote scripture to them they stand confounded, but tradition is a powerful force and they can’t quite overcome their training. So you say to them, listen to the words carefully, “You want to see the Father?” “For no one has ever seen the Father,” they’ll tell you. “Well, he who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, ‘Show us the Father? I have been so long with you, Philip, and yet you want me to show you the Father? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How then can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” You quote that from the 14th chapter of the Book of John and they stand amazed (verse 8). They can’t deny scripture, but reason cannot allow them to accept it. Here is the 14th chapter of the Book of John, now we go forward into the 16th chapter, “I have spoken to you in figures; the hour is coming I will no longer speak to you in figures but tell you plainly of the Father” (verse 25). I have talked about the Father but from now on I will tell you plainly, said he, of the Father.
Well, who is he? Listen to the words again, “I took away my father that I might find out who the Father is.” When you come to the third, as the hymn brought forth, as the skies in their revolutions brought forth the third, the appointed day…what did they bring forth? Wrapped in the silence of the tomb was the Great Redeemer—and the tomb is the skull of man—completely wrapped in swaddling clothes, in the skull of man. When I first heard it years and years ago from my old friend Abdullah, he said, “Neville, never think of Christ save you think of him as a child”—people paint pictures of a matured man—-“Always think of Christ as the Christ child, always.” I couldn’t quite grasp it, didn’t quite understand it. These words have been told me by a Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia, of the Jewish faith. He knew more of Christianity than all the priests of the world. Just like Paul he was born a Jew, born of the tribe of Benjamin. “I’m a son of Abraham after the faith, but if you took it even physically” said he “I would still be after the flesh, but now I know the spirit.” And he said to me, The Christ child is always the child. Now we turn to the 8th chapter of the Book of Proverbs and here is a child speaking: “I am the first of his works of old. Before he brought forth the heavens, I was beside him as a little child. I was daily his delight, and rejoiced in the works of men” (verses 22,30). The little child, scholars say personify that, or rather, that is the personification of the wisdom and power of God. With that I do agree. It is the personification in the form of a little child of the power and wisdom of God. “I was daily his delight”…God delights in his creative power, personified as a little child, wrapped in swaddling clothes in the silence of the tomb; and the tomb is the skull of man.
Comes that day in the life of a man, individual man, when suddenly he realizes I took away my father, my outside father that I might find out who the Father really is. The day comes he finds the Father. Well, if I am a father, then where is my honor, where is my son? And then the son comes and looks you right in the face and calls you Father. He calls you “my lord.” Well, “my lord” is an expression that every ancient boy used of his father. He always referred to his father as “my lord”, Adonay, always. And so David calls him “my Father.” So he asks the question, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” And they answered, “The son of David”…for that’s traditional. He said, “Why then did David, in the Spirit, call him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how could he be David’s son? And no one asked him any other question” (Mat. 22:42). Here is the most glorious experience, and every child born of woman is moving toward this experience, for the end is to awaken as God. The end is to inherit God.
Now the promises were made to all of us, but the promise made to us differs from obtaining the promise. You and I who received the promise, we are regarded as heirs because we received the promise; but it differs from obtaining the promise. When we receive the promise, then we have received what was promised. And that which was promised is God himself. In between receiving the promise and receiving that which was promised is the pilgrimage of man. He moves on this earth as a pilgrim for unnumbered years until he comes to the point where he receives the promise in its fullness…that which was promised. And what was promised?—-God. “They should have no inheritance; I am their inheritance: give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.” You possess God in his fullness: you become God, you inherit God. God is father, so you will never know you have really inherited God unless God’s only begotten son stands before you and calls you “my lord.” And you know it beyond all doubt as he stands before you and calls you “my lord.” No doubt whatsoever when David stands there; and then you fulfill that portion of scripture, “Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee” (Psalm 2:7).
So the journey is on, and this whole vast world of ours has but one purpose: for hatching. “At length, for hatching ripe he breaks the shell” (Blake). And when he breaks the shell, then out comes that which calls you Father. So I know from the depths of my soul that this voice has never lied to me, never. And so, “Why did you make it?” and then it replied, “For hatching, just for hatching”…for hatching out everything in this world. You can hatch out success, same world, hatch out failure. He allows you to hatch out anything in the world. But you will not thwart his purpose, which was to hatch out God. For God entered death’s door and laid down in the grave of man to share with man all of his visions of eternity; and then he comes out, and when he comes out you are he. You have no way of knowing that you are he were it not that his son calls you Father. So if his son calls me Father, then I am he. So I can say with the central figure, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
This whole drama is a peculiar mystery. The mystery of Christ––you and I confront morning, noon and night as we read the Bible or hear it discussed—is no less a mystery today than it was in the day of the scribes. They couldn’t understand it either, as they were inspired to put it down. And so, the mystery that confronts us, the person of Jesus, is no less a mystery than it was then. If you and I come at it with our, I would say, prefabricated misconceptions we are no wit better off than they. They, too, have the same misconception: They are looking for a savior on the outside—as someone had a father which is a representative of power and authority on the outside. And “Call no man on earth father, for you have but one Father, and he is in heaven…and heaven is within you.” It isn’t that you deny fatherhood as a physical state. You love him dearly, more so than ever. You see the part he plays. You see him in a new light, as a brother. Well, brotherhood without fatherhood is impossible. But you see everyone, including your own earthly physical father, as brother. You see your own children as brother, you see everyone in the world as brother. But there could be no brotherhood without a fatherhood, couldn’t be. Any more than there could be a resurrection without death. How could you conceive of resurrection without death? So, “Wrapped in the silence of the tomb the Great Redeemer lay, ’til the revolving skies bring forth the third, the appointed day.”
So in his case, it was the third. Here, the first one, and the first one stated it in simple terms as though another spoke, “I took away your father that you might find out who the Father is.” That is, affirmed it, to fulfill the 41st of Genesis, where the dream or the voice repeats itself. If it doubles it, then it means that shortly it shall be brought to pass, the significance of it; and so, the second one was a repetition, word of word, of the first. But the third, the pronoun’s changed, “I” becomes now a different “I” altogether. The first, the “I” was another one speaking, but now, listen to the words, “I took away my father”…can’t be another one speaking now… “I took away my father that I might find out who the Father is.” Not that you might find out or he might find out, but that I might find out who the Father is.
Then you see the whole thing in an entirely different light. To use his words, “I saw my entire life in a beautiful new light, that everything was ordered, everything was perfect. There was no confusion any more. That when my father made his exit from this sphere at my age of eight my world then was shattered. I know now that was my purpose in the beginning: to find my true Father. So that disappearance was all in order from my world. It drove me to the point of suicide and caused me to hurt those I loved best, and now on reflection, the whole thing was ordered.” So, “As I planned it, so shall it be, as I have purposed, so shall it stand” (Is. 14:24). And the purpose, as we defined it earlier, is a deliberately conceived plan. You conceived it for its ultimate end, which is God the Father. That’s the plan of God to you and everyone in the world would inherit him. If I inherit God and God is one, and you inherit God and God is one, and we inherit God and God is one, then are we not one? So in the end, there is only one; therefore, there’s only one Son and that one Son is David. If I am his father, and you are his father, and we are his father, are we not the Father?
So it’s a brotherhood and a fatherhood; one brotherhood, one fatherhood. This is the great mystery. So Paul in his letter to Timothy, he said, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion” (1Tim. 3:16). He uses the word mystery no less than eighteen times. He knows it’s a mystery; and the world thinks that it’s a little secular history, and it isn’t. It’s the great mystery: Contained within us is this one who is wrapped in the silence of the tomb, the tomb being our skull, and he’s wrapped in the swaddling clothes…and here is Christ, who is God the Father. And so, when you come and you awake, you are Christ, and, therefore, God the Father. How will you know that you are? Well, you’ll ask the question “What do you think of Christ?” “Oh, he’s the son of David.” “Then why did David in Spirit call him Father, call him ‘my lord’? If David thus calls him ‘my lord,’ how could he be David’s son?” And you have the experience.
You look into the mirror the next morning and the beard is still there to be shaved, you still have to wash this garment, you still have to feed it. And all that you were taught about Christ Jesus falls away. You see the garment that hides him now, for you had the experience. You know it’s not the outer garment of flesh, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But you had the experience of Spirit and you know who you are. So you shave it and you feed it, and you go through the day, the normal day, knowing that you’re going to fulfill scripture. And they will say to you, “Well, if this happened to you, go and show yourself, certainly you want to display it.” Then you will say, after the words recorded in the 7th chapter of the Book of John, “For even his brothers did not believe in him”…his brothers did not believe in him. So they want him to become a magician and go out into the world and be magical, do fantastic things. And he knew in the depths of his soul if he did everything in the world that man could never do, they still would not believe. You can’t believe until it happens.
You may take it on credit as it were, take it on approval. When I was a little boy we charged everything and sent it home on approval. And so, mother put the little shoes…and so if they didn’t fit you sent them back…but you took them on approval; you didn’t have to pay for them. So you put all your clothes on “on approval,” and at the end of the week, after you tried them all on, and either they didn’t look right or they didn’t feel right, mother would simply call the place where she had them sent “on approval,” and they sent and picked them up. How they survived, I don’t know. But that’s how we conducted business when I was a boy. So what I tell you now, you may take home on approval and then send it back to me, reject it. For his brothers did not believe in him. And so, if he did a thousand things he knew that would not be convincing. They would ask for the thousand and one. So no matter what you did, neither the number nor the character of the signs that he performed convinced them to the point where they believed, where they accepted it, and became sons of the faith of Abraham. So I tell you from experience this is going to happen to you.
This morning, between 5:30 and quarter of six (and the gentleman is here tonight) as I was coming back from the depths of my soul I heard the voice, and the voice is speaking to this gentleman who is here tonight. The voice asked a question and his answer was, “I’m a student of Neville.” The voice said to him (I am like an eavesdropper), “If you are a student of Neville, you are far, far along the path of salvation,” and then I woke. It was quite dark, but the mornings are dark now, so I would say between 5:30 and quarter of six. So I can say to him what I heard the voice say. What voice? I heard it, but it was the voice in the depths of my own being. For in the end, there is only one voice that speaks with authority, only one voice. If you know in the depths of your own soul all that you’ve had is recorded in scripture, and it goes back thousands of years, and you’re only fulfilling scripture—-“Scripture must be fulfilled in me”—and if everything recorded there you have experienced, then that is your voice.
The day will come you will know it isn’t another, though you may have heard it from another. In this case, it came to him as another speaking with an authority. And so he knows that what I’m telling you is the truth. I’m not manufacturing it; this is not the product of emergency thinking. I’m not trying to in some way contrive it to tell you something. All this is simply what I have experienced. And so, I know that all these characters of scripture are contained in us, every one. But the important ones…as stated in the very first verse, “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” So man matures when he becomes his father’s father. The whole thing begins with Abraham. Are we not told that all the nations of the earth will bless themselves because you believed. Read it in the 22nd chapter of the Book of Genesis: Every one in the world will bless himself because Abraham believed (verse 18).
So he goes back to that state. And who was that “believing one” but God. The word Abraham means “the father of multitudes,” that’s what it really means. And so, you go right back. The father of Jesus Christ, David? Well, David calls him “my Father.” And then, David the son of Abraham? That is not analyzed in scripture, because you go right back to be the father of your father, and then you know who he is. It is God who willed himself to go into this fabulous world of death and bring back an experience that would expand him beyond what he was when he started the journey. Now you know who he is, that God actually imposed upon himself this limitation and started this journey, a predetermined journey, that not a thing in the world could in any way divert it or stop it. And at the very end he comes out, but he comes out expanded beyond what he was when he started the journey. So you and I are coming out, inheriting God, expanded beyond the wildest dream as we can conceive it here.
So this experience of my friend is a fantastic experience, really. “I took away your father”—-that’s the first—-“that you might find out who the Father is.” And after that was repeated and affirmed comes the change in pronoun, “I took away my father that I might find out who the Father is.” “Call no man on earth father”—so I took him away—“when you have but one Father and he is in heaven.” So if he’s in heaven and heaven is within me, I must find him. If I find him though I have no child on earth and I find Father, then show me the child. “For a son honors his father. If then I am a father, where is my honor?” So if I have found him, bring me that child; he’s got to call me Father, and I must know without any uncertainty that he really is my son. And may I tell you, you do not know anything in this world with the same assurance. You do not know any relationship…we trust our wives and we trust that our wives trust us…I mean, that is all taken on trust. So when we say, well, they have a little child, my father.in a humorous mood when he toasted a friend of his would always say, “Well, here’s to the man who rocks his child and rocks his child alone, for there’s many a man that rocks another man’s child and thinks he’s rocking his own.” But in this case you have no uncertainty when you see David. It is your son and there is no other father; and may I tell you, no mother, just you and your son. And you know it more surely than you know any relationship in this world. And so, everyone is destined to have that relationship, that experience. So he who has it fuses with me, for we are one. Everyone who has it fuses with me, without loss of identity. Therefore, in the end “the Lord is one and his name is one” (Zech. 14:9).
So here, the voice said to me, and it has never lied, “It is for hatching” and the hatching is to bring forth God. Where, outside? No, can’t be brought forth on the outside; brought forth in you as you, that’s the hatching. Well, if he’s brought forth within me as me, this must be just like a big egg; and when the egg is broken I come out and I am he. So the whole world is for hatching. But while we’re playing our parts in the world of Caesar, we can hatch out success, hatch out health, hatch out better relationships, hatch out anything. But first of all, you must want to. It starts with a desire, it starts with the urge. God’s imaginal dynamic is called “anger” in the Bible: “And the anger of the Lord will not turn back” (Jer. 23:20). That’s the imaginal dynamic. You must lust for it, for God lusts to give himself to everyone, as though there were no other in the world, just God and you; and finally, only God, because you are God. That was the dynamic that could not turn back “until it had executed and accomplished the intents of his mind; in the latter days you will understand it clearly.”
So the same urge…if you want to succeed in this world, you must have that same drive, that same desire in this world. A friend of mine gave me the paper yesterday the Observer, comes to us on Monday, and today she called to ask if I had seen, on the thirteenth page, a letter among the letters where Goldwater didn’t have the lust for power, and that no person ever sat in our White House who didn’t have that lust for power. You must have lust for power to sit in the body that represents the greatest power in the world, you must. If you have other things in your world, you don’t have that same lust. So I’m not saying that you should have it, but if you wanted something in this world other than what you now enjoy, you must really want it. Don’t ask how, just really want it! And then if you really want it, this world is for hatching…it’ll hatch it out. You may not want it after you get it, but that’s alright. You can simply bring it to pass and then want something other than what you bring to pass. But you must want it. You start with a desire, with a lust. In fact, one of the words used to define the word “prayer” is lust, longing. It’s a longing and then a yielding to that after which you long. That’s how it’s defined.
But regardless of what you bring to pass in this world, I assure you, from my own experience, God cannot fail in his purpose for you, and that purpose is that you inherit God. So, if you have to impose upon yourself at moments a sad experience or some other thing in this world, bear in mind that when it comes to you on that third day, the appointed day, when you hear who the Father really is, you’ll reflect upon your life and see it in a more beautiful light, and see it all is ordered, all is perfect, just as it ought to be, because of your predetermined goal.
Now let us go into the Silence.
First of all, we’re closing a week from tonight, closing on the 15th instead of the 18th. The club needs this area for the annual party, which will be held on the 18th, so we’re closing a week from tonight, and reopening on the 5th day of January. So that will be also a Tuesday. I think it is, yes, a Tuesday. I will not be sending out notices to remind you, so bear it in mind. I will have a little ad in the L.A. Times, but I’m not sending out notices between now and then. So I will be open on the 5th day of January, the usual schedule, every Tuesday and Friday in this place. We’re closing a week from tonight, so we have but two lectures left, Friday and next Tuesday. My friend Jack, who is bringing out my little pamphlet called He Breaks the Shell has promised it for next Friday. So, it’s just a little pamphlet the size of The Search, and so anyone who is coming may pick it up, it’s He Breaks the Shell. I have related my own personal experiences in these four mighty acts of God as he unveils his finished portrait. For “Let us make man in our image” was the primal wish, and not a thing will stop him from fulfilling that wish. When he’s fulfilled it, he unveils his image in four mighty acts, and so I have recorded the four mighty acts as I, personally, have experienced them. And, it’s a little pamphlet, just about the size of The Search, and he tells me he will have it next Friday. We really only have two days more, Friday, and then we close on Tuesday.
But I know, in New York City I went through Hallmark’s new building on 5th Ave. and 56th St. It’s a beautiful building and marvelous cards. I saw many a card there for $2.50 and $3.00 and more…just a card. Well, this is truly the story of God’s final work. It may not be told…in fact, I will confess it has not been told as a Shakespeare would tell it or a Blake would tell it. I am not equipped to tell it in that manner, but I have told it as clearly as I possibly can, without embellishment, and I haven’t added one thing to it or taken one thing from it. I’ve just told it just as it happened and tried to relate it to all of the passages of scripture. So I put a little subtitle to it A Lesson in Scripture. For all the things that happened to me I pointed to scripture where it ___(??) told me. So it will be here next Friday. I, personally, do not send Christmas cards, and I doubt that I would send cards a dollar fifty apiece; but, nevertheless, I can say I have seen cards in New York City, $2.50 and three dollars and more per card, and it’s not a message, just a beautiful, lovely arrangement as a card. That’s a hint to send it as a card, you see.
Lecture questions
Are there any questions?
Q: Would you please explain again God the Elohim and God Jehovah.
A: The word Jehovah is defined for us as I AM; it’s singular, I AM. The word Elohim is plural. He said, when asked the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” he didn’t mention any of the ten as recorded in scripture. But he did mention this, from the 6th chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” (verse 4). If I would now put it into our language, “Hear, O Israel”—-Israel is simply everyone who has the faith of Abraham. Israel is one of the pure in heart, a man without guile. They said, “Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile” when he spoke of Nathaniel…so anyone who fits that pattern, one who would be incapable of hurting another for personal gain. You could hurt others unwittingly, that’s not it, but to hurt them deliberately for personal gain would not be an Israelite. So an Israelite in Spirit, not an Israelite after the flesh, for he addresses now those who are coming towards the fulfillment of his purpose. So, “Hear, O Israel: The I AM, our I AMs, is one I AM.” It’s a compound unity, one made up of others.
So you will not lose your identity in that day when you see David and David calls you “my lord”; and, therefore, on that day you and I will be one in the true sense of the word, without loss of identity. So we are the Elohim, and all of us will one day experience the fatherhood of God. There’s only one Father, so on that day he’ll be king over all the earth, and he will be one, and his name one, just one, without loss of identity. And we all return from that predetermined play where we, in the beginning, agreed to dream in concert towards the end, which was agreed upon before we started. When all of us, the Great Redeemer which is I AM, just simply wrapped in the silence of the tomb, started the dream.
Q: Neville, ___(??) riding the white horse?
A: Christ riding the white horse? Well, the white horse in Revelation is the mind completely under the control of the rider of that mind. And so, the white horse…a friend of mine sent me a dream where he was on a boat and there was a white horse who got aboard the boat, and it knocked someone down, even injuring others, and there was confusion. It was a battleship, it was a British man-of-war, and he was among the Britishers (although he is an American). They were shooting up some air ___(??), and the horse jumped overboard. When the horse jumped overboard, this battleship ran aground and there was confusion. One threw a spear at the captain and it went right through the captain. Then he pulled the spear from himself and threw it at someone else and almost severed the head of another. Well, there was complete confusion when the white horse jumped overboard. There was no control; there was no mind in control. So, I would say to him (he’s here tonight) a dream is a private parable and the earthly form that it takes is always secondary to its meaning. Don’t try to give meaning to all the little parts of the frame. It has one jet of truth. In this dream of his, the horse is the jet of truth. The horse should be ridden by Christ: “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus” as we’re told. If that mind is not in you, well, then you can’t ride the white horse…he falls overboard. You’re not in control of your mind. And then comes confusion and the captain was speared, and others were speared, the boat that should be afloat ran aground, because the mind is not in control.
Q: [inaudible]
A: I said that man matures when he becomes his own father. He completely awakes when he becomes his father’s father. So, it begins “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” If he is the son of David…and he contradicts that by asking a question, “What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he?” and they answered, “The son of David.” He said them, “Why then did David, in the Spirit, call him ‘my Lord’?” and quoted the 110th Psalm: “And the Lord said to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” That’s the 110th Psalm. So he calls him “my lord,” therefore, he can’t be his son, for “my lord” is an expression that a son uses of his father. So, really, David is calling him “my father.” Now we go back, if now he calls him “my father” then he must be Abraham. For the book is, “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” Abraham, who then is he? Who is this being called Abraham that is the father of the multitudes? Ab is father; Resh is life, ___(??) life. Here, the spirit of life. Well, you’re told the Father has life in himself: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted also the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26]).
So here, no rabbi would deny that these two characters…at least not Jesus Christ…but David and Abraham are the high-water marks in any genealogy of the Messiah. Well, the word Christ means “Messiah,” and so you could use the word Messiah instead of Jesus Christ; that this is “the genealogy of Messiah, who was the son of David, the son of Abraham.” So when one awakes, he sees the whole thing is Spirit. He stands in the presence of one called David. Well, David is one who called Jesus Christ “my father.” Well, if the Bible tells you Abraham is his father in Spirit, then who is Jesus Christ?
Goodnight.
Questions
- What is the fundamental purpose of life according to this lecture?
- Answer: The purpose is “for hatching,” specifically to hatch God within man, so that God emerges as that man in whom He is buried.
- What specific experience does Neville’s friend share in the lecture?
- Answer: He shares how he lost his father at age 8 and heard a voice say to him three times, with the last time changing the pronoun, “I took away your/my father so that you/I could discover who the Father is.”
- How does Neville explain the relationship between the earthly father and the heavenly Father?
- Answer: He explains that the earthly father is a symbol of authority and power, but the true Father is within us, as Matthew says, “Call no man on earth father, for one is your Father, who is in heaven.”
- What does the phrase “inherit God” mean in the context of the conference?
- Answer: It means that the ultimate plan is for each person to awaken as God himself, possessing God in his fullness, confirmed when the son (David) recognizes the father.
- How does Neville explain the mystery of Christ?
- Answer: He describes it as a spiritual, not a historical, mystery, where Christ is the Father who must be discovered within each person, not as an external figure.
- What role does David play in this spiritual interpretation?
- Answer: David represents the son who recognizes the Father, and when he calls someone “my lord,” he is recognizing his divine fatherhood.
- How does Neville define the spiritual maturity of man?
- Answer: He says that man matures when he becomes his own father, and fully awakens when he becomes the father of his father.
- What does “incubate” mean in the worldly context according to Neville?
- Answer: He explains that we can “incubate” anything in this world – success, health, better relationships – but it all starts with an intense desire or longing.
- How does Neville explain the difference between Elohim and Jehovah?
- Answer: He describes Jehovah as the singular I AM, and Elohim as plural, representing a unit composed of many who maintain their individual identity.
- What does Neville say about the white horse of Revelation?
- Answer: He interprets it as the mind being completely under the control of its rider, symbolizing the mental control necessary for spiritual fulfillment.