AS MAN BEGINS TO AWAKEN, HE CONTROLS AND TAKES OVER, AND IS NO LONGER
A VICTIM OF HIS VISION, FOR HE HAS CONTROL OF HIS ATTENTION
As man begins to awaken, he controls and takes over,
and is no longer a victim of his vision,
for he has control of his attention
The whole vast world is no more than man’s imagining pushed out. I
must qualify that by saying that the world outside of man is dead, but
man is a living soul and it responds to man, yet man is sound asleep
and does not know it. The Lord God placed man in a profound sleep, and
as he sleeps, the world responds as in a dream, for man does not know
he is asleep. And then he moves from a state of sleep where he is only
a living soul to an awakened state where he is a life-giving spirit.
And now he can himself create, for everything is responding to an
activity in man, which is Imagination. "The eternal body of man is all
imagination; that is, God himself" (Blake).
Three wonderful case histories were given to me last Tuesday, and I
can best describe what I mean by telling you of one of them. Here is
this lady driving east on Sunset, and she comes to a stop at Laurel
Canyon. A bus is to her right, and then she sees this little elderly
lady in gray that is running diagonally across the street through
traffic, trying to catch that bus. The bus driver sees her but he
pulls out leaving her on the street. The lady, who gave me this story,
told me that she felt compassion for this elderly lady, but she was
not in a lane where she could give her a lift; she had to pull out
with her line when the light changed. She said to herself: “I will
give that lady a lift just the same.” So, in Imagination, she opens
her car door and lets her in.
Then still in her Imagination, she hears the lady tell her that she is
meeting some friends a few blocks away, and if she had to wait for
another bus she is afraid they would not wait for her. The lady in the
car carried on this imaginary conversation and it took maybe a half a
minute until she felt satisfied about it. Four blocks ahead, as she
again stopped for a light, someone tapped on the car window, and here
stands a breathless little elderly lady with gray hair, dressed in
gray. My friend lowered the window and the little lady said, “I have
missed my bus. Can you give me a lift? Friends are waiting for me, and
when they see I do not get off the bus they may go on and leave me.”
My friend let her get into the car, and then six blocks further the
little lady said, “There are my friends!” and thanks the driver and
gets out.
Now here is a lady I say is awake. And may I tell you that in heaven
there was joy because one called a sinner (we are all sinners, for we
are all missing the mark, and the mark is to awaken) has discovered
that the whole world is responsive to what we are thinking. She could
not actually give the first little lady a lift, so she did it in
Imagination, and then she sees this other elderly lady and gives her a
lift. Here, she is enacting her imaginary drama, and four blocks later
when the dream is completed this little old lady taps at her car
window. In her Imagination, she gave a lift to a little gray haired
lady dressed in gray. Does it matter if it was the lady behind at the
last bus stop or this lady dressed in gray? Everyone is responding to
what we are doing in our Imagination. There is no outside world that
is really alive. It depends on the activity of man for its aliveness,
who is a living soul. Man named the animals, the birds, the trees –
everything. God became man as a living soul, but he had to forget he
was God to become man, and now man has to become a life-giving spirit,
where he knows that everything is an imaginal activity.
Here at that corner where the first part of this little drama took
place, half of those who witnessed it would bawl out the bus driver
for not waiting for the old lady, and the other half would say she was
a fool for running into the street. This lady in the car could have
reacted like that, for the dreamer does not know that he is dreaming.
It is only when we awake they know they are causing the dream, or even
had a dream. The lady in the car saw only someone who had failed to
realize an objective, so she enacted a scene for her implying she had
realized it. And four blocks later she meets a little old lady who
says to her the exact words she had heard in her Imagination. Her
imaginary dream unfolds in detail. An awakened dream is crystallized
in the world. “Real are the dreams of gods, as they slowly pass their
pleasure in a long immortal dream.” When man completely awakens, he
dreams his pleasure, and everything responds while he dreams it.
We think everything in the world is completely independent from our
perception of it, but the whole thing is dead. I see it, and come upon
it, but the whole thing is dead — frozen. Then I start an activity
within me, and then the world that was dead becomes alive, but not
knowing I am doing it, I am sound asleep, and then the whole thing
takes over and it becomes a nightmare. But I must keep control and
know it is dependent on me. The world is infinite response, and the
thing that makes it alive is the living soul called generic man (male-
female). And then God wove himself into the brain of this generic man,
and then he sleeps. As man begins to awaken, he controls and takes
over, and is no longer a victim of his vision, for he has control of
his attention. Everyone is free to create his world as he wants it —
if he knows that the whole thing is responding to him.
THE LAW
Lecture #303 – Neville 11/20/1959
www.NevilleLectureHall.com
