Untitled lecture

In one of your books, Neville, -- I think it is “Feeling Is the Secret,” -=- you say that you have to have a change in conception to have a change in feeling; but from the lecture platform you tell us that when we hear others tell us they can’t do this b@cause, -- and so forth, we should use our imagination to help then. a634 ¶1

Why, certainly. I will repeat that. ~634 ¶2

My question is this: If that person will not change his conception, how can we change it for him?634 ¶3

If you realize that the great confession of the Jewish faith is: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” -- you look-out upon the world, and there seem to be billions of people; but one day you’ll discover it*s only your own being fragmented. There is no “other.” The whole vast world is your- self “pushed out.” So, if my daughter fell down the stairs, as she did as a child, I don’t scold her. I rush down and pick her up and bring her back and comfort her. I don’t say, “It serves you right.” Let her learn her lesson. I told her one day, “You want a dog. All right, you’ll have a 7 dog, but you will take the dog out and air it”; and she didn’t want to go down sixteen flights, -- we lived on the top floor, -- to the street and walk up the sidewalk to air it; so she was allowed to take it on the outside of the apartment. We had a lovely little garden on the outside, about 30 square with lovely plants. I said, “You may take the dog out and air the dog there; but you have to:clean up the mess.” And after about four days it wasn’t clean; so I said to her, “You know, Vicki, I told you, you can have your dog, but that little place has to be clean.” Well, at the moment it didn’t suit her, but she had to clean it; so she went outside with her broom and her pail, and she was Cleaning like mad. We have three long French doors, all glass; and in her anger she struck the glass and broke it. I didn’t complain. I said, “You see what temper does. Learn your les- son. You simply smashed the door. I’ll put it back. But learn your lesson now. Your anger -- your emotion -- caused this thing to happen. Yet, you are supposed to clean this place. You know that. We gave you the dog; we allowed you to have a dog. All right, but you have to do what we said was your condi- tion on owning the dog.” She understood it. She has never for- gotten it. So, in her case, if she is injured, I don’t blame her. As her father who loves her, I don’t blame her; I paint a mental pic- ~ ture of her as I would like her to be, and persuade myself that she is what I believe and want her to be. So, help every one in the world. Tell them the story, that they May stand upon their own feet; tut in the end, you are God, and God is One; and the whole vast world is yourself “pushed out.” This is just fragmented Being, the whole vast world. But‘ you do it by starting with yourself just where you are, and _ then you push out your circle. You start with your family. My wife and my daughter are dearer to me because they are right at my home -- my responsibility. But I can’t just limit it to that. I have friends; and then from friends to other friends, and others and others, and then finally it pushes itself out to the whole vast world, taking in races and nations, because I can‘t limit it just to one. But you do start with the cirele where you are. And it should be in your case, or any one’s case who has a wife -- it should be right where the wife comes. Or if it is a woman, where the husband comes. if an offspring is there, then naturally the children; and then you start spreading it out. If one cannot help himself, I would not say, “All right, it serves you right.” You step in, and you do it. It is yourself “pushed out.” ; As I brought out the first night, if this hand itches, ortthe back of it,eand I say, “All right, you are itching; but this hand isn’t itching, so it serves you right.” Well, all right, if I let it itch and this other one can come to its assistance but I won’t let it, then who is suffering? I ami I am suffering; s0 instead of suffering because I am stupid about it, I compel this hand to go:right over and scratch it, for the whole vast world is myself “pushed out”; and if I cannot, at this moment, do it, then I call upon this to do it. But know a principle. This is a principle of which Ispeak tonight. And, so, there are always two within a man, and they are in con- > flict. The rational mind is always in conflict with imagination. That letter which you wrote me, which I got the other night and read with great, great interest, for all your things are perfect- ly wonderful and your interpretations are marvelous; but the quote that you gave of Paul Brunton I thought was perfectly stupid. Here is a man who tells us that the credulous mind is a weak mind. But if you aren’t credulous, what on earth could you ever do in this world? I could not go to the moon if I could not be credulous and believe it. I wouldn’t dare to cut a piece of cloth and believe I could put it into a dress if I wasn’t credugous. So, what on earth does he mean? That’s why [said earlier, 99 per cent of the stuff that finds its way into print isn’t worth my eyesight. I can’t read it. - Now, he has a name, and he has written all kinds of things and he speaks of an Oversoul. In quest of something outside of himself, he*ll look forever, and he will never in eternity find~ it other than himself. But he has books, and they sell because it*s highly publicized. Well, when you quoted that, I said, “My lord!” You quoted it at the very beginning of your letter, but I love you; so I went through your entire letter and loved all that you said about your personal experiences. But that quote at the beginning annoyed me; I would have closed the whole thing up if that was the preface. If that simply determined what fol- -—~ lowed, I would have closed the whole thing up, but I didn’t in your case because I like you.634 ¶4

I am exposed to so many young people right now. How can I correct the way they dress without telling them right to their face? [This question was not very clear on the tape.]634 ¶5

Well, first of all, I do not know what they have done to displease you. I know many of them dress unlike the ‘way we dress, but I can’t blame you. I mean, if that is their choice of dress, all well and good. I only have to go back a few cen- turied to find in the western world they all loeked that way. If they go back and take the pictures of the western werld three or four hundred years ago, they all had beards and rages beset and they never bathed -- never bathed! A little bit of perfume here and a little bit of perfume there, and that was the last of it. But they didn’t clean themselves. ete ark: I can’t say they are not moving back like a circle into that same state. I, for one, like a daily shower. When I was running a temperature of 104 and 105 last year with that silly flu that I got, I still took my shower every day. I took it unknown by wy wife and other members of the family because they would have protested; but I didn’t feel clean until I took my shower. Well, I am not going to say: that I am the criterion of what others should do. Who am I to be the criterion? I would not allow any one to set himself up as the criterion for me; therefere, I — would not set myself up as the criterion for another. I like to shave every day. I like to have my hair cut short. But why should I say you should do the same thing? But when these kids come and they force strange things on you, -- well, then, be a lady and tell them of the difference between your thinking and their thinking. I was waiting for the bus in L.A., and these two kids came up, 18 years of ago, thumbing their way and no car was stopping for them. They were going by like mad, but buses were running every 20 minutes. So, I at least thought of them for thirteen minutes anyway. Then one fellow said to me, “Could you loan me a dime?” I said, “I do not know who you are. You have no collateral. I do not know where, you live. And you want a loan! If you want a loan, you must prove that you are capable of ing it back. You don’t want a loan; you are asking me to alive you a dime. Why didn*t you say that?” He said, “Well, I’ve got to go back to school and study the English language.” I said, “You’d better do that. Now here is a quarter”; and I gave him a quarter. He said, “Man, man! you are a gentle man.” And the other one, he said to me: “Mun, man, man! you’re a ~ gentle man.” That’s all he could say. Everything was, “Man, man, man, man.” I said, “You’d better go back to school if you ever went to school, and then come out so you can actually tell me what you want. You want a loan -- a loan of a dime, and without collateral!”634 ¶6