Untitled lecture

Neville, would you talk a little on the 40 days and 40 nights?n13589 ¶1

Well, you see, in the Bible numbers have their symbol- ical meaning. They have multiple meanings. “Forty” is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The letter is “MEM.” Its symbol is the womb of a woman, that which gives birth. So, here he goes into the period of creativity. Will he accept the test? He accepts the test, but he plays only Scripture in defiance of his own temptation. It*s not a being outside of himself tempting him. The whole story unfolds within the mind of ; the individual. Will I believe what I have heard tonight? Then the test starts. Will I accept what I’ve heard tonight? and bring forth from it; or will I simply go back? So, he said, “If you are the Son of God,” -- do this, that, and the other. You should not test the Lord. If I believe it, will I accept the tests? In New York City, I was on a midnight panel that went through the night, and a professor of philosophy from an eastern college said to me, “If what you say is true, that imagining creates reality, then turn this pencil -- ” It was a yellow pencil. “Turn it into red.” I said to him, on radio, -- and all his students were = listening in because he told them he was going to get the better of me. I said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a scoffer, and i*m told that the scoffers come in the last days who will deny and say, ‘Where is he who is to come?* But ever since the world was made, things have gone on just as they did in the beginning of time.” He blushed and blushed and blushed. I said, “You want me to turn this -- I would not turn it into any other color than it is. If you want to turn it into any other color, go and paint it! That’s simple enough. If you want the yellow to turn to red, go and paint it.” Don’t take the challenge of any one in the world. It*s all within you. The challenge comes from within you. Do you believe it, or don’t you believe it? Don’t let any one else challenge you. But they will, only when -- within you -- there is still that lit- tle question mark. But don’t accept it. If I have a cold, -- so I have a cold. And many will say, “Why should you have a cold?” I am in the world of Caesar, and the body decays, as all bodies here decay. So, I get a cold, as any one else here gets a cold. And I have demonstrated -- People are always demonstrating something. We came from New York City through Chicago on our way to San Francisco, years ago; and — a lady ran ahead of us and knocked my little girl down, -- she was only three, -- knocked her down on her way to get a table in the dining room. I picked my little Vicki up and walked quietly for- es ward and sat down at a table. There were lots of seats. And she was a Christian Science practitioner on her way to some conven- tion in Chicago, and she had “demonstrated” a table. She had demonstrated a seat by almost killing my daughter. Well, I don’t call that “demonstration.” She was a lovely practitioner, and I learned from the conversation that she would go to the convention and tell them how she had demonstrated a seat in the diner. Lovely, isn*t it? Well, I don’t go for that. Let them all pass by, -- there will be a seat there for me; and, if not now, I will wait until they get up.e I don’t call this “applying the principle.” She must live in constant confusion demonstrating. And if she gets a cold, she’ll remain at home where no one will know, and swear by all the bibles in the world she never had one, because they didn’t see it. If she has a headache, she will take a couple of aspirin. No one knows that, you see. No one will ever know she took two aspirin to simply ease the pains; and, so, when she really can’t see, she will go to the oculist, and he will give her good glasses; and she will see with nice glasses, When she has a pain in her mouth and the dentist says, “You know, this has to come out,” no one knows she is going to the dentists; but she will have it out, and get a good tooth put in that God gave the dentist the intelligence to make for her. as So, why try any of these stupid things? I “wear” this body. It is almost 66 now, arid it’s wearing out. It used to be very, very strong -- unusually strong; but when it reaches its peak, than it starts going, and it is moving towards complete disintegration. Well, what am I trying to do? Compete with the young boys of 50 I have no desire to compete with these handsome young fellows in their 30’s and 40’s. I’ve had that! Then came that day when the energy that went down into generation is turned around and moves up into regeneration, when the serpent within me turned up as a fiery being right back into my skull from which it came. What a joy now! “ Just imagine to be able to say, with complete honesty: .*If you “unveiled the entire world of three and a half billion men and women and put them all before me, they would leave me cold and completely unmoved.” I could not always say that. So, when the attitude is turned down into generation, you don*t have to unveil it all, -- just one would be enough. But, then, suddenly it turns up, and it is completely ‘turned around from generation into regeneration. Now, unveil the whole vast world before me, -- it would mean nothing to me. I remain completely unmoved, for the energies have been turned up, where before, they were turned down. They were all turned down -- that fiery being, and we simply went el berserk, exércising that power in a thousand and gne different ways. All of a sudden came that bolt of lightning that split me in two, and there at the base, the blood of God! And I fused with it, _ and then I became it, and like a fiery serpent went right up into the interior of my own being; and, from then on, the whole vast thing that formerly disturbed me ceased to be. That’s peace! -- the only kind of peace in the world.n13589 ¶2