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.

To be continued…