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The difference between myself, my ego, me Sam Lewis, and most people is that before I wrote on St. Paul, St.Paul came to me and said, 'Why don't you learn a little bit about me before you write about me?" What do you think of that? It's enough to upset any writer on mysticism, absolutely, and I'm quite willing to upset them. Paul had the audacity, the temerity, the gall, to manifest to me before I wrote this book. I had to tell you that. Kenneth Saunders used to come around lecturing on Buddhism. I heard him at the Pacific Schools of Religion long before most of you were in the body. He wrote his last book, "The Gospel for Asia," trying to prove Christianity was greater than Buddhism. He picked out a scripture, the Gospel of John, I believe. But you see, I differ from him. Oh, I don't differ from the claim that Christianity is greater than Buddhism. I wouldn't argue about that. You see, Christians talk to each other, Buddhists don't. They have nothing to do with each other. I'm going to share my favorite scriptures with you right now, and I give you absolute leave to differ from me. I'm not going to impose this on anybody. No one has the right to tell others that they should have a favorite. My favorite scriptures are the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Chapter of the First Corinthians, but as a complete Scripture, I like the Gospel of St. Thomas. As a whole, I prefer it to any thing else. Again, I have no right to impose this on you, at all, because as St. Paul himself tells you, you have different kinds of gifts. He didn't say, and I don't say, I've got all the gifts. "If I should speak in the languages of men and of angels, but have not Love, I have become sounding brass or a noisy cymbal." Not long ago I was over at the University of California there were some "Hare Krishna " people out there. And police stopped them and they had to move over to where there was a man yelling in a very Billy Graham way. But yelling Billy Graham he didn't yell "Come to Jesus." He was giving a couple of simple virtues of Jesus: Jesus went out and healed people, and he went out and fed people. No Hare Krishna people don't do that that way. I feel a bit positive in this, because I've been doing something no Hare Krishna person would ever dream of doing: I'm reading Krishna's scriptures. In Krishna's scriptures all the people went out saying "Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram." A little bit annoying. I don't know what the Hare Krishna people stand for, except themselves unfortunately. Please don't get any idea I'm speaking against Krishna or even saying Jesus and Krishna were the same or different. I think they would agree on the point of Love, although they might disagree on the manifestation. The Krishna love is upward, always to God, and the Christian love is very often to humankind. I'm much more interested in the latter, and I don't say I'm right either. God no. I'm much more interested in love to humanking and with humankind. Q.-Excuse me, could you explain that again; which love is "which? I didn't quite understand. A.- The Krishna love is always up to God and the Christian love includes humankind. Q.-In other words, Love is God. A-Words. I don't care about philosophy. I mean operations now: They both say that. Q.- You're saying the Christian love is flowing through you to mankind. "And if I have Prophecy, and know all secrets and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not Love, I am nothing." Recently I had the audacity to tell someone that I was much greater than Nostradamus. For two reasons: First, my predictions, though they're not published, have come true, and not symbolically. Second, I've always felt they were under Divine guidance, and with love and compassion for humanity and not with the idea of just looking into tomorrow. St. Paul said, "I die daily." Actually, I if you really die daily you can see into the future easier, although this is also a difficulty. When you try to see into the future, when you should be looking at today, you don't see very well into the future, and you see even less well into today: Give us this day our daily bread. There's some question about looking and I don't like it, because very often what you see is pretty terrible. In addition, if you start telling people what you see, you can make a beautiful bunch of enemies. Your friends will start turning into enemies. Even if you predict the winning of a candidate or anything of the kind. All the things in the book called Glory Roads (which was not a book of predictions) by Luther Whiteman and myself, came true. Everything down to details, and it was not a book on occultism. It was a book on social and psychological movements in the State of California. Every prediction came true, exactly, as we logically thought it would come, and everybody turned against us because everybody knew they were going to save the world. Everybody knew that, just as everybody knew they're going to save the world. Of course, tomorrow you won't hear about them anymore. One of the great organizations working for world peace here in San Francisco isn't listed any more. Isn't that beautiful? They had a great big peace conference and called forth a great Moslem who gave a great talk. He was so great, everybody was so ashamed. They wouldn't go near him. Then a Rabbi was given a great award, for what he was doing for peace. And what have these men done to bring peace in Palestine? If you say nothing it's an exaggeration. Nothing. is an exaggeration. They run to cover. The great Moslem that thousands of people came to hear was asked at the conference of THE TEMPLE OF UNDERSTANDING in Geneva, "What do you have to offer beyond oratory and emotionalisms?" "What are you doing here?" "Who do you represent?" He said, "I don't represent anybody but myself." "Well, thank you." That's all he does present, but politicians will take any hero and boost him up. Then when the time comes for them to put their cards the table, to do something, nothing happens. Nothing, accept wasting time trying to defend themselves. That's, had to offer, and that's what most of our peace organizations do. They promote the big man, the big woman. When this world effort on the part of women for whatever they want, to be equal slave drivers and bosses and millionairesses, was making headlines I came before a class and read the psalms of the Buddhist nuns. Do you know what those confounded nuns were talking about? Praise God. And union with God. We know Buddhists don't that! That's all they talked about. And Joy and Happiness. Now isn't that terrible--teaching absolutely opposite of Buddhism, and mentioning God with praise. Who reads the Scriptures? We've got so many 'experts.' They don't have to read anything; they know everything And everybody's divided on who the experts are. But isn't anything else to do but praise God and find union Him. And women are doing that. What kind of women they? I see some around me now. Well, I'm afraid I'd better be quiet, because in the hour ye think least, or in Bethlehem-Ephrata, they come up. Not up in the big headlines. This is always the way, and this will always be the way, and why not? God isn't going to change Himself to please Madison Avenue. Some disciples of mine came, having quarrels with each other. Two of them came into my room and I said, "I can't listen to you." They said, "Why not?" I answered, "Because you are me. You're not talking to me, you are me. You and I are the same, and if you think there's any difference except in our stomachs, I'd better give you a lesson on it." And then I kept quiet, and they understood. Then I said "If anything is said and done against you, it's done again to me. Remember that. God bless you." This is what the church meant. People who take communion together are part of one personality. They may have different stomachs; that's all right. If you take a star fish and you break off its legs and you throw it in the ocean leaving 5 legs and one stomach, pretty soon you have six starfish. You can learn a lot from nature. I mean the nature of nature, not the 'nature' of philosophers. Although I've been saying "I am the vine and ye are the branches thereof, my experience has been much like the Bo tree. You take a branch of the Bo tree, plant it in the ground and you have a bunch of Bo trees growing up around. Some of these Bo trees become bigger than the parent one. And why not? I looked and I found myself a forest. I found I was no longer a tree, but I was a forest, and if a stranger came wouldn't even know which was the original tree. "Love suffers long and is kind. Love is not boastful, is not puffed up; acts not unbecomingly, seeks not that which is not her own; is not provoked to anger; does not impute evil." I've been having a wonderful time trying to answer, what is good and what is bad. I don't know. I can try to ascertain what is, not to say what is good and what is bad. But what is. You'll begin to feel that. When I went to the women's dancing class I had a little problem. No, no, no, no, not that. There's a tendency to go in in different roles--to go in as a man, to go in as a teacher, to go in as a grandfather, to go in as a spiritual leader. I had to set all of these aside. Any thought of any capacity had to be removed. I had to enter into that state of consciousness where all you can do is give--a sort of enlightening love. Every now and then I burst out and say things. When I speak on 'peace with justice' I often yell. Anybody that believes in God and satellites, or God and politicians, or God and everybody but your neighbors, might understand 'peace with justice.' But if they want just God, they won't understand what this means at all. It's not God and or God with. So when I came to the women's dance class and put all thoughts aside, the Mother manifested through me. There used to be a joke during the time of Roosevelt Someone said, "I don't agree with him." His friend replied, "Remember, there is behind the President a great power that you can't remove." And the joke was: "I don't agree with her, either," meaning his wife. But regarding this, I can definitely say there is a great power behind many spiritual leaders today, and I agree with her. It doesn't come out through what the world thinks of as power at all. This is what I had to learn for the women dancing class. To come out not as father, not as big brother, but to come out as mother comes out. This was a great lesson. A great lesson. My voice became different, and I became different. You know what God did after I left the dancing class? I had nothing but visions of more and more dances. They have been coming so fast I don't know what to do about them. With all these new dances, I know what to do in every contingency. I didn't know it was possible. Everyone seems to love these dances. Because all of our dances are base chanting praise to God, in different languages, it is true. That's all they are, praise to God. Some day I'm going to do some Cross dances. I mean the Divine Cross. And I know what it's going to come to, and what the effect will be. Things like that are coming. Where'll be more and more of this. I know what is going to happen. What is this Love? In Sufism, in which I'm trained, the same as the expressed by Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Thomas: "When the without is as the within? the above is as the below, and the below, is as the above; and the male with the female, neither male nor female." This is no longer a philosophy. It has to be a reality; and I mean just that: it has to be a reality. When you go to that place you begin to know what Love is. In Sufism we say "Ishk Allah, Mahbood Lillah: " That, God is love, lover, and beloved. That's fine in theory, but now when it happens, it happens. Miracles start occurring. I think we're moving toward that place Jesus describes. "Love rejoices not with iniquity, but rejoices with truth; covers all things." You don't tell other people's faults. A girl came to me and I knew what she wanted. She loves to be psychoanalyzed, she is a perfect masochist, he is a perfect masochist. She would love me if I listed all her weaknesses. Oh, she would love me. She's very distraught when I don't tell her what her weaknesses are. She thinks I'm holding up something from her, that I'm not trusting her. One doesn't see things that way. "Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." Don't be perfect as you conceive of perfection, because you can't. A carpenter isn't a perfect cook. A cook isn't a perfect engineer. An engineer isn't a perfect doctor. What do you 'perfection?' You can find fault with anybody anything. You can even say Jesus may have been a perfect carpenter but he wasn't a perfect such-and-such. And I say "Well, Jesus may have been a perfect carpenter but," and what does that 'but' mean? He wasn't a Herod. My kingdom is not of this world. He perfected himself in his profession; he didn't try to be in all things. Again the keynote here all the time is: "We have the mind of Christ." And the mind of Christ is also the heart of Christ. This is something to consider--the Greek word nous. "Love fails not at any time; but if there be prophecyings, they will be done away; or if languages, they will cease; or if, knowledge, it will be made useless. For partitively we know, and partitively we prophesy; but when the perfect thing comes, that which is partitive will be done away. When I was a child, as a child I talked; as child I thought; as a child I reasoned; but when I became man, I put away the manners of the child. For now we see through a dim glass obscurely; but then we shall see face to face. Now I know partitively, but then I shall know fully, even as also I have been fully known." When you have this Love, you see fully. You see the Universe. You become almost like God, because you are made in God's image: you can see as God sees. Then you see the whole world is inside yourself. When you see the whole world is inside yourself, you can learn to heal, to help. Then you can learn anything you want. This Love is the fulfillment of the self, the fulfillment of life. Christ said, "God is Love," and "A new command I give unto you, that you love one another." When we this then we will no longer see differences. There are two types of differences: differences in functioning and differences in subjectivism. When you do something, as a cook, as a house-cleaner, as a buyer, as a preacher, it's one thing. But when you begin to think about each other that is entirely outside this realm. So, everybody is to perfect in pure function. Or, as I said before, I have the only school I know (and I'm going to apologize if it isn't true) where you can pass by flunking. There is a man here in the audience who has flunked nearly all my astrological tests. When we came to the Uranus walk and spin, I knew he wouldn't even have to be tested. Of course he passed because that was he, not what somebody else thought. With all respect to the great Sri Aurobindo, if you read Edward Carpenter,(6) he tells you all about the coming of Uranians. Great, but nobody reads it and, of course that spoils the show. There are millions of people being born like Carpenter said they would be born and acting like said they would act, right here. But we don't read him. He was the successor to Walt Whitman, but we don't read him. I read him years ago, I didn't know much about it then. I don't know much about Uranians, but now I see them coming. We're to be perfect as God in heaven is perfect, not think each other should be perfect. Q.-Could you give us any more on the mind of Christ being also the heart of Christ? A.- The mind, of course, is the perfection of the intellect, and it is the second body. The third body is one that is absolute Light. Jesus differed from most of us. I'm going give you my interpretation of the betrayal. Jesus come through Jerusalem on a certain day and everybody sees him (at least all the churches say that everybody saw him). Everybody. The next week the Roman soldiers came to catch him and they couldn't see him at all. What happened? Everybody's seen him, why couldn't they recognize him? They had to go ask Judas, who said, "He's over there." Why? Because he was manifesting as a pillar of Light, not as a form. The Light was so great you couldn't see his form. Can you understand that? You can't understand that. The first time I went to see my spiritual teacher I went into the room and there was a tremendous light. At first I thought, it's June 21st right at noon when the sun is at north, and I came into this room at the south, so, there this tremendous light. At first I thought it was the light of the sun, but it was much brighter. Then I walked in and had to stop, the Light was so great. He said, "Don't be afraid come ahead." There was a man there. Now, if that's true of my teacher, how much more true could it have been of Jesus Christ? A tremendous Light. "Let thy Light shine before men," and not symbolically. Q.-Where does the heart come in? A.-When the heart is awakened, the Light is coming from there, shining brilliantly. When it's awakened it's perfect, perfect Light comes from it, because it can accommodate, more. You see, the physical body can only take vibrate up to a certain pitch, the psychic body many times more and the spiritual body to many times more than that. I want to call Jesus the Son of the Sun, maybe that's true. But what's the use of calling him the Son of the Sun if don't recognize he was it? With the tremendous Light that was there in the person nobody could see him. Even after they all saw him the week before, they couldn't see him then, because he was tremendous Light. When you go through illumination, that means illumination. It doesn't mean a symbolic thing. It meal that, illumination. Maybe Jesus was the Son of the Sun. They couldn't see him. Tremendous Light was there so you couldn't see a form. He had to have somebody to show, where he was, so Judas pointed him out, and they called him a betrayer. Nothing of the kind, he didn't know he was betraying Jesus. Q.-He didn't know? A.-He didn't know he was betraying Jesus. Q.-Is that why he could go up to him and kiss him on the cheek? A.-Yes, he didn't know it was a betrayal. Q.-What about the taking of the money? A.-He still didn't know. They gave him some money, but he didn't do it for that reason. He was trained. You should read some other things about it. Do you know you have scripture by Judas called the Book of Jude? How did it get into the scripture? How did it get there? If you want to see Judas' point of view, you've got it right in the Bible, not our minds, not in our egos. Yes? Q.-Is that Judas Iscariot? A.-Yes. Everybody's looking for a devil to accuse of something. Always the other fellow. Q.-Does it have to be on this scriptural reference? A.-Why, no. Q.-I was coming across something in the Old Testament on Lucifer being the bearer of the Light, and I couldn't find anywhere it told of this allegorical fight in heaven between the good and the bad angels. I couldn't find anything that ever spoke of it. A.-I don't think there is anything about it. I can't speak with absolute authority on this. But now we want to go further in this universal love, which is coming. We have young people who really believe love means love, and is not a word to be thrown about or bandied about to explain their own misdoings or their own right doings. I have been successful (and we're calling here for your full co-operation) in getting Jews and Moslems and Christians to sit down and eat, pray and dance together. We're not asking you to contribute money, to put it in the pot, and think that because we all contributed, we're equal. Q.-Let's just say, for instance, I wanted to get baptized at a church. So the minister says to me, "Well, now I want you to say out of your mouth that you love Jesus Christ. I want you to say that you're going to bruise the head of the serpent, you know, step on the devil." So I say, "I don't want to condemn the devil, I don't want to condemn anybody; I love everybody." Is that a good thing? A.-Now, wait a minute. I've been to many baptisms, and they're much more interested in loving Jesus Christ than thinking of any evil at all. There may be some churches that do that. The devil is inside yourself. It means crush out that part of yourself that differs from Jesus. That's the devil in you, not a person outside. At least that's my interpretation. The head of the devil is your own mind constantly thinking all kinds of things wasting time and energy. Q.-About the Uranians, is that the race that's coming in. A.-It's coming more and more. I won't say the race that's coming. More and more Uranian type people are coming yes, it's quite obvious. Q.-It's the same as Aquarians, isn't it? A.-Yes. Higher intuitive faculty, much quicker minds, I fooled by all kinds of nonsense paraded before you, not believing that Madison Avenue writes scriptures. Q.-I have a scriptural reference on the comment about fallen angels. In Luke 10:18: "And he said unto them, I behold Satan as lightning fallen from heaven,..." A.-It's a temptation. If you get into the psychic world, you'll see all kinds of lights. These lights are not pure Light. They're caused by interferences of light, but they'll still be a form of Light. It may be subjective or it may be objective. You'll be tempted by it and drawn to it--but it separates you from others. You cannot have that kind of experience and the communion experience. They're contrary to each other. The communal experience is where all are in harmony with each other. You get light and color when two colors cross each other, but you get another phenomena when colors merge into each other. For example, blue light; red light make scarlet; blue pigment and red pigment make purple. So the phenomena of the one is not the same as the phenomena of the other. Light or shadow operate differently. Only at a certain point do they seem to resemble each other in the world of Light. We've got to learn things about Light. You can often be tempted. You also have the mean getting out of temptation. It is not only by praying, "lead us not into temptation," but you have practices where you won't be tempted. You'll know whether you're tempted or not by what's going to happen to you. It's happened many times here. If you haven't had it yet, you will have it. You will be called upon to face yourself. Any other questions? I like these questions. I think, we're into a very good subject and I think it's very important. I don't think there's any person who could be more anti-Paul than myself and take his scriptures. Because by 'anti-Paul' I mean I read books against him by somebody else and agree with him. Then I go and read Paul and I like what he writes very much. All right, you're thinking too hard. You've got to learn to pray and feel and meditate, and then it'll come clear, but not by thinking. Carrying a tremendous load upstairs is not necessary, not necessary at all. It's like some questions I've had recently. What do I think of the president's foreign policy? What do I think of his domestic policy? Or these women who want equal rights? Or something else. I could think and talk forever, but what would it do? That's nothing but noise. I could ask you. I could psyche you beautifully, but that's not the purpose I have here. The purpose is to help awaken you, not to inform you. I want to awaken you. In my advanced dancing class, sometimes in my efforts to awaken people I become so awakened myself that I don't know what I'm doing, getting into a world of nothing but Love and Light. Very beautiful, but I'm supposed to be moving the body. Love is going to manifest exactly as it says it's going to manifest, but now how people think it's going to manifest. Q.-Lead us not into temptation, in the Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptations. A.-Well, what about it? Are you asking me a question or do you want me to talk about it, or what? We are in temptation every time we think of anything other than God. We don't know this, but we are. I have to thank God for making me a gardener and a horticulturalist, because I could think about God all the time I was doing the occupation. It didn't hinder, it helped me. If I had to work in an office with a lot people around I would've made lots more money and bought more aspirin and anacin and empirin and everything else to get out of the headaches. But still, that's the idea, to be able to do that too. To be able to think of God in the midst of work with all kinds of chitter-chatterers around you who would just as soon cut your throat as cut the meat they are eating. This is very hard, but after a while, when you get into that right feeling, you'll go right through with it. It will lead us through. A. Temptation in this sense is thinking of other than God and making a separation. I remember when I wanted to go back to college I had to take an entrance examination. I didn't know what the subject matter was, so I thought of God and prayed and prayed and prayed. They told me I passed the highest they have ever had in the whole history of California. A few, weeks later, I took an examination and bent my mind thinking about the subject matter, and flunked. That was the last time I flunked, of course, knowing that. As I went further, I not only thought more about God very time I had an examination, but God started coming to me the last term of school. He came to me like He was superman, and solved some problems. Then He said, "You 're too far ahead of the world; they're not ready for it. Stop." It was wonderful. So I was never pushed again. God can be to you like a Father, just as the scripture says. Or else He can be totally different. It can be. I'm having more and more such experiences recently. The more I refuse to think of God as Father and think of Him as a cosmic being, or the Light behind, let's say, Christ or Mohammed, or Krishna, the more He also comes to me as if He were man. But that doesn't come out of my ego at all. The things that have happened, certainly couldn't come out of my ego. I couldn't think them. I couldn't do them. They come through me. The same could be with everyone of us. Think not what you're going to say, and God will speak through you and then you'll be a co-worker with Him. If you think you're a co-worker with God, you're not. If you let go and say "Use me," it will happen. Q.-What is the real relationship between man and God in prayer? A.-You know, I was at the Cayce Foundation and it said "Prayer is man speaking to God, and meditation is God speaking to man." I accepted this as a definition. We went to the prayer meeting and most of the time somebody was asking God or telling God, which they often do. In meditation they talked more than they did in prayer, so I asked, "When are we going to listen to God?" They asked me to leave. We can listen to God, believe me. Sometimes we get delayed answers. Two years ago I planted some crops. The didn't come up. Last year I planted some crops. They did come up. This year, I planted some crops. They came up, along with the crops planted a year ago and two years ago. All at the same time. So, God, Who is very kind and merciful, says "Do, and don't worry about what you don't do--just do, keep busy, and I'll take care of the rest of it." That's what's happening now. I've absolutely no time, but I'm not confused. I do everything I can, and then He comes and helps me through other people. I don't pray much as I've said, because my prayers are always granted. It's all right to say lead us not into temptation--the Lord's prayer--because you're not asking for something for ego-me. On that I go very slow. Q.-Are they not the same thing, prayer and supplication. A.-Prayer is supplication, yes. But you've got to learn, "Be ye perfect." And what are you praying for and why? When went to Japan, I asked God to let me see a Shinto wedding because I liked the music. So every time I went to a Shinto Temple there was a wedding on, and I never got a chance meet any Shinto priests. So be careful about what you praying for, be careful. Things like that often happen. Since Gunner Jarring has come out, (a man who thought my plan for Palestine is the best he ever saw), I'm getting more careful about asking for anything. Maybe I've done what God wanted me to do and in time it will come out. I'm going back East soon. What is happening here is so, wonderful; it's exactly what I've dreamed of. God is doing it through other people. If you ask God, He will help you through everybody, not just through certain ones. It becomes a reality, not a theology, but a reality. Make your realities what you think of as theology. If you can take the dust of the earth, and the dirt and muck, and find angels there, those who aren't quite so low there's perhaps a better chance for them. Or maybe there isn't. But don't pride yourselves on your sins, because there were worse sinners here to start with. I have to say the worse punishment I could give you girls, and I still mean it, is to have to listen to the other girls and what they've gone through. I have a girl like that, who is so self-pitying. I wish I'd brought her over and had her listen to what some of you were going through. The purpose of my women's dancing class is to bring the women to love each other. I've got a lot of beautiful girls they love the men, and the men love them. And the men love each other. Now what can I do to get the girls to love each other? I don't do this by talking, and I don't to it by admonishing. I do it by feeling and devotion. And you know, this is working. I think this is wonderful. It's working. They begin to feel that they are each other.
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Chapter Eight
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