A DIVINE EVENT

A DIVINE EVENT

Christmas is the proclamation of a divine event to which all creation aspires. It is an
event which puts an entirely different light upon human life, for it proclaims that
man has been saved. I question seriously whether an nth part of one per cent of
those who call themselves Christians know what this event is about. Tonight I will
tell you from my personal experience.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’
except by the Holy Spirit.” Now, the Holy Spirit is nothing more than the
individual’s personal experience of the event, for in the Book of John, the Risen
Christ proclaims that he will “send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who will lead
you into all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” In
the beginning you were told that which seemed incredible, and the Holy Spirit is
your experience of that event, for only then can you know that Jesus is Lord.

Now, who is Jesus? He is your awareness, your I AMness. In the Book of Exodus,
Moses was told to “Say unto the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent you.’ This is my
name forever. By this name I shall be remembered throughout all generations, and
besides me there is no other Lord.” Jesus is the Lord, your I AMness; your
consciousness of being. “Joshua” is the Hebraic form of our word “Jesus” and
means “Jehovah is savior.” There is no other Lord than I am. “Our God is a God of
salvation. To God, the Lord, belongs escape from death.” God is buried in
humanity to make man a living being. And he will rise in the individual as his own
wonderful human imagination.

The discovery of the God within is the one far-off divine event to which creation
moves. The only resurrection spoken of in scripture is when he rises in you, and the
only birth spoken of there is when he comes out – and that is Christmas. The event
seems to be single and separate from the other events, but they are all part of a
complex whole. We are now approaching one part we call Christmas: the birth of
God, the birth of I am!

Where could you go that you are not aware of being? Therefore, where can you go
and not find God? If you lived in hell would you not be aware of being there? So
God is in hell. If you lived in ecstasy you would be aware of your ecstatic mood,
and that awareness is God, for I am is the only name of Jesus.

In his Book called Acts, Luke said: “There is no other name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved.” To call Jesus? No! To be aware! Without
using words, when you are aware you are saying I am. That is Jesus, who is buried
and rises in you. And when he escapes from the tomb of your skull, Christ is born.
We are taught that this happened 2,000 years ago among people who are long gone
from the world, but I know from experience that when it happens in you it is
strangely contemporary. Yes, Christ was born. That is a fact, but it is not over, as it
is still taking place in the individual the world over. Christmas is that one far-off
great divine event to which the whole vast world is moving.

If you ask someone who calls himself a Christian, who Christ is, the chances are he
would tell you that Jesus is the son of God. And if you told him that he must be
God to know that, he would be horrified and tell you that you are blasphemous to
suggest such a thing. But if you return to the proclamation of the great event, you
will find that “No one knows who the son is except the Father.” So if you know
God’s son is Jesus Christ, then you have to be God the Father. And, since no one
knows who the Father is except the son, Jesus Christ must have revealed you as his
Father. Well, man cannot rationalize this because he has not had the experience; for
no one can know that Jesus is Lord (which is God the Father) except by the Holy
Spirit, for it is he who brings you the experience of the great mystery.

We are told that when Paul rose up into the third heaven he heard unutterable
words. Some translations say they were “words which man may not utter,” but it
isn’t that. What Paul saw and heard was incapable of expression in words. There
are no words to express a body that one wears when he rises within himself, for it is
not a body of flesh and blood, but an indescribable form divine. In his 15th chapter
of 1 Corinthians, Paul said: “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
And what you sow is not the body which is to be, for God gives it a body as he has
chosen.” I will know you in eternity, but for all the identity of purpose there will be
a radical discontinuity of form.

Yesterday morning when I returned to this level of my being, I arrested the body I
was wearing to spend some ten to fifteen minutes right on the surface of my being.
The form is alive. It is all energy, all power, all wisdom, and all love. I wear that
body as I do the suit I am wearing now, only I know it to be my very self. I am
always in control, by intensifying my energy or modifying it. In that body I looked
out over glorious scenes never seen on earth. They were all three-dimensional
visions in vivid colors and indescribable forms. I would observe one, then let it go
to observe another – all heavenly treasures which are in me.

When your eyes begin to open inwardly into the world of thought, into eternity,
you will see what no mortal eye turned out could ever see. There are no images in
this outer world to describe the eternal world which is imperishable, the world you
will see when you are wearing Christ, the New Man.

This is an indescribable, ineffable, mystery; for God comes to us as one unknown,
yet one who will allow the individual to experience who he is. When you
experience Christ, you are experiencing who you are, for you are the Jesus of
scripture. You are the Lord God Jehovah. The event toward which you are moving
is the awakening of the Lord in you. Then and only then will you know who you
are.

Christmas is simply the proclamation of this one far-off divine event to which
creation moves. It is not about one who lived a long time ago, but about you. The
Bible is very personal. It is your own spiritual biography, your salvation history. To
see the characters of scripture as characters of history is to see truth tempered to the
weakness of the human soul. They are not characters on the outside, but within you,
for the drama unfolds in your imagination. You are buried in yourself and do not
know it. But when you reach the fullness of time you will awake to Christmas.

Last lecture night I told you of an experience of a friend who tasted of the power of
the age to come. She had found herself, in dream, in the home of people who have
not changed the fashion of their outer garments for 300 years. The woman’s second
husband had been killed by the group and she tried to persuade them that what they
had done was wrong, but they would not believe her. A group of men all dressed in
black and carrying machine guns arrived, ready to kill everyone, and when she tried
to persuade them that it was wrong they could not understand. Then she began to
awake in her dream to realize that, although they all seemed to be independent of
her perception of them, they were only aspects of her dream. Arresting her power
of perception, everything froze. She changed their intentions, released the activity
in her which allowed them to become reanimated again, and watched as the man
put down his gun and with outstretched arms went over to embrace the woman.

This is the power of which I speak. It is a power unknown to the mortal, rational
mind. We think power is in the atom bomb, in hydrogen energy, money in the
bank, or securities. Tonight, undoubtedly a dozen or more very wealthy men will
die and not take one penny with them. They simply left the garment of flesh and
blood they made so real, along with their securities. But you can never lose the
power of which I speak, for it is forever. These bodies die, and all that they possess
will die with them; but the power of imagination is imperishable, for it is the power
of God in man, called Christ. Man is slowly awakening to this power and when he
hears and senses it, this is the power he will exercise.

Now, in my friend’s case, she awoke in her dream to discover that, although
everything seemed to be taking place independent of her perception of it, the dream
was only herself pushed out. Knowing that she could control the dream, she
changed the motivation of the man from murder to love. Then she released the
activity which allowed them to become reanimated again, and they obeyed her
command. This is your future, your inheritance where everything is under your
control.

These bodies of flesh and blood are only garments God wears. Even though they
are consumed in a furnace (called cremation), the bodies are restored for others to
occupy. The world is restored, but you – the actor in the drama – move up until you
finally awake, and that is what we call Christmas.

Christmas is the awakening of God in man. It’s not an event which took place
2,000 years ago, but is taking place all over the world in those who have reached
the fullness of time. When the fullness of time has come for you, you begin to stir,
to awaken from this dream of death and come out of your skull, which is your birth
from above. These two events take place the same night. We separate them by three
and a half months, and then add a few months to the discovery of the fatherhood of
God, then more time to the ascension of the spirit; but there are four parts of the
one grand event. The first is resurrection. The second is birth. The third is the
discovery of the fatherhood through the son, and the fourth is the ascension: the
rising of the son of man (who you are) into heaven in a serpentine form.

Tonight many are preparing for the great event and singing their heads off on
Christmas morning. I’m all for it. Let them have fun. But they will be singing of
one they do not know. They will sing their hallelujahs thinking that someone in
time and space is responding to their adulation – but that’s not Christmas. In the
world, moving among them walk those who have experienced the event. They
know that Jesus is Lord and that he is their wonderful human imagination, their I
AMness.

I am is Jehovah’s name forever. By this name I shall be remembered throughout all
generations. You are now a living being because Jehovah is buried within you. And
you are destined to become a life-giving spirit, as my friend discovered she was.
Stopping the activity in herself which allowed others to be alive, she changed their
motivation by giving a command which was in conflict with their intentions. Then
she released the activity in her and they became reanimated once more – not to
carry out their former intention, but to execute her command. She has now tasted of
the power of the age to come.

On this level we argue, trying to persuade the other that he is wrong when he
knows he is right, so we end up just where we stand. This is life in a world of death
where everything waxes, wanes, and vanishes.

But you are destined to enter the world of which I speak. It is eternal and cannot be
entered with a body of flesh and blood, but requires a new body. So unless what
you sow dies, it cannot be made alive. And what you sow is not the body which is
to be, but God (who is yourself) gives you a body as he has chosen. It is a glorious
body of power and wisdom and called the body of Christ. It is worn as you would a
garment, only you are in control of your power through your innate wisdom – a
wisdom to which no doubt is attached. This proclamation is not discovered by
some rational argument. The gospel is not discovered, it is disclosed. It is not
something you can logically prove, but a self-revelation of God. Scholars can study
the life and teachings of Jesus until the end of time but never find in the study who
the Father or the Son is. If they did, they would not tamper with the Bible.

In the earliest of all the books, the Book of Mark, the statement is made: “The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.” The phrase, “the son of
God,” is an addition by a scribe. The earliest and best manuscripts that we have,
omit the phrase, “the son of God,” and read: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.”

The word “gospel” means “good news.” This is the good news, that Jesus is the
Lord Jehovah and Christ is his power and wisdom. He is buried in us and he will
rise in us. You will know of his rising because the day he rises in you, the very
imagery of scripture will surround you, and you will know that you are the one
spoken of as the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you will discover who the son is, for you
will not know that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (by experience.) And you
can only know your son from experience. David, the personification of humanity
fused into a single being, stands before you and calls you Father.

You are told at the end of the Old Testament that “A son honors his father. If then I
am a father, where is my honor?” In other words, where is my son? The New
Testament begins by revealing the son, but man cannot understand. He does not
know that Jesus is the Lord who is God the Father, until he has the experience of
waking and rising in his skull. Of coming out of that skull and holding the Christ
child, the sign of his resurrection, in his own hands. He must stand before the son
of God and David must call him Father. And may I tell you: at that moment there
will be no doubt in his mind as to who the son is and who he is relative to that boy.
He will know he is David’s father and David will know he is his son.

In the Book of Samuel we read: “When you lie down with your fathers I will raise
up after you your son, who will come forth from your body. I will be his father and
he shall be my son.” Now we jump to the Book of Revelation, where the Lord is
speaking, saying: “I am the root and the offspring of David.” I am the root, the
cause which is the father. And I am the offspring of my son, David; therefore I am
one with my grandson. All of the members of the human race are fused together
into a single being called David. And what comes out of that? David’s offspring. If
David’s root is the Lord, what comes out of David must be one with his root, so I
am the root and the offspring. I am the grandfather and the grandson and David is
my son. Man matures when he becomes his grandfather, for the grandfather is the
Lord.

We are dealing with a mystery. If you think when you read the story of the Old or
New Testament that you are going to reach truth by some rational argument, you
are searching in vain. The wisest of the wise cannot see it, and because it isn’t
rational they call it a myth. But I tell you: he gives himself to whomever he will,
even the lowliest among men. Those who have all their degrees, honors, money,
and reputation are dead but do not know it. I do not condemn them or argue with
them, but simply walk by, looking for willing ears to tell my story to, and usually it
is to those who are not the scholars of the day. Those who hear my words may not
understand them, but locking my message in their hearts, they ponder it; and one
day, believing as I hoped they would, it will erupt within them. Then they, too, will
know that the Lord Jesus is he who the world calls the God of the universe. They
will know it because the Holy Spirit brought to their remembrance all that I have
told them.

Let the world go blindly on, as it will. Eternity awaits. It doesn’t matter how long it
takes. Everyone eventually will come into this knowledge. But no one will come
until he hungers, until he thirsts after God with a thirst that only an experience of
God can satisfy.

The world, not understanding scripture, thinks that God will send a physical
famine. Oh, that is possible, it happens all over the world anyway. It’s not because
we cannot supply the food – the problem is economic. We are told to curtail
production, as we cannot find bins large enough to house our supply. We put an
enormous weight on the taxpayer because we allow food to rot, as we do not know
how to give it away. People are paid not to grow food, while our government talks
about not being able to supply. Our southern states alone could grow enough to
feed and clothe the world, but how to do it under the present economy? I am not an
economist so I cannot tell you how; but I do know it is not a lack of production, but
rather a lack of economy.

The economic problem I cannot solve, but I can tell you that Christ in you is your
own wonderful human imagination, that the God of scripture and the Lord Jesus
Christ is your I am. Let the world scoff at it. That is perfectly all right; they are only
fulfilling scripture. “Scoffers will come scoffing saying, ‘Where is the promise of
his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued as they
were from the foundation of the world.”’ So let them scoff, but you accept my
message and put your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you. Hope it will
erupt within you now, in the not distant future; and then – when you shed this
garment of flesh (as you must), you will be clothed in power; clothed in wisdom;
clothed in love.

Those who have not had the experience before they depart this world are restored to
life to find themselves in a world just like this. They will be faced with all the
problems they have neglected here. They may leave the garment of a billionaire to
find themselves a shoeshine boy or one who cleans latrines, if that is what must be
done to rouse them to believe the incredible story.

Don’t think that your present position in life is any indicator of what you will be
when you leave here. If Christ has not awakened in you, you will find yourself in a
terrestrial world like this, in a body like these, new and young, but not a baby. You
will be doing something best suited for the work yet to be done in you. Until that
power in you awakes, you will continue using your rational mind in a rational
world just like this.

The Christmas that we now look forward to celebrate is one aspect of the great
event. There are four definite acts in the single event, which begin with your
resurrection. This is followed by your birth from above. Then David reveals your
fatherhood, and the fourth and final act appears when you ascend into heaven in a
serpentine form and enter it violently, clothed in power.

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville Goddard 12-08-1969