.............. THIRD PORTION OF A WEEKEND RETREAT LECTURE ................... by FREEDOM BARRY: TRANSCRIPT OF "FREEDOM ON THE BEACH" LECTURE PRESENTED by FREEDOM BARRY HELD AT CAMBRIA, CA on SEPT. 14-15, 1996 Freedom: He called it an Architectural Museum of Applied Art. So when he died, the corporation did make the offer to the University, and the University refused it. They said they'd love to take the things, but they didn't want the buildings. Of course, that would have ruined the whole purpose. So then they offered it for sale, and Bing Crosby made an offer but apparently it wasn't sufficient. Apparently, they reconsidered, and offered it again, not to the University, but to the State of California as an historical monument which they accepted, with the proviso that if it were not successful, they could return it to the corporation after five years. But it exceeded all imagined hopes of popularity. Ron: How many people go through there yearly. Freedom: Over a million every year. They're wearing it out. Vern: Thirty eight decorated bedrooms, they said up there, and of course, the servants were extra. I asked the guide if it were really true that many guests were ever there, and he said yes, quite often... Freedom: I know of only two occasions where everything was filled, that was in 1936. That would have been his sixty ______ birthday? Anyway, he gave a birthday party for himself two different years, and those were the occasions, what is now two or three, before those rooms were even finished on the inside. So they set up cots and used it as a dormitory. They installed the bathroom fixtures so people would be accommodated. But as far as the thirty eight bedrooms in the main building that are now decorated and usable, there are only two occasions when everything was in use that I know anything about. Colleen Moore said very often the guest list would contain no more than fifteen. So as far as its being just a pleasure palace, there was much more behind it than that. Tirza: From the description, it sounded like that not only the castle but William Randolph Hearst were cement shells. There was not content. They said that Phoebe, his mother, and he had been estranged since she had packed off his first love to Europe to get rid of her. Freedom: They were inseparable. If there was any difficulty between Millicent Hearst and her husband, William Randolph Hearst, it was not because of Marion Davies, it was his devotion to Phoebe. They called him a mama's boy until the day she drew her last breath, and he built that whole place as a memorial to her. Tirza: That's what they did to the Winchester Mystery House. They turned it into a joke, and they mock her. Freedom: What a crime. Sean: Could you call it a chronology of history through art? Freedom: You could indeed. In fact, in the guide trailer where we had our thirty minute rest break between tours, they have a chronology of what was going on in all the arts around the world at these different times; what was going on in the world of music, of painting, of tapestry weaving. It's a fascinating thing, so you get some sense... When the Spanish Inquisition was at its historical highlight, you see what was happening in all the arts at that time. It's a wonderful opportunity. Sandra: That's terrible that that's going on. Somebody ought to give them a little booklet of information... Freedom: They have it all there. That's where we... if they have that bent... See, it's operated by the Department of Parks and Recreation; we're in it. But, the approach that they fail to see it as what it is, and it's just that it's the biggest calling card of the twenty one units of the State Park System. So they don't care for it to be presented for what it is. Tirza: They're giving the public what they believe the public wants? Freedom: They're giving what they think is what the public wants, but I have always said, and I believe it true on every level, that if you feed them what is the highest that you can possibly give, they will rise to it. But if you plan out only what you say they will do, first it's a sign of your arrogance and their ignorance, your assumption that they are ignorant, and what's going to lift them? You feed them with that stuff that you can see on any channel on any night, and you shut it off out of self defense. Talk about violence and whatever... For some of them, it's a job; it's a civil service job. It's for the State of California civil service; it has nothing to do with this place. I did it to work here. But I don't know how many pages were devoted to algebra in the test. There was nothing that related to this except perhaps one little paragraph that had to do with... it was called comprehensive reading. You had to read it and then answer true and false questions. It had to do with Constitutional monarchies of Europe in the 19th century. That was as close as anything that test got to anything at this place. Judith: The tour guide said, "At first, I tried to study carpets to see if I could tell the difference. One night, we had three Persian carpet experts here, and they couldn't even tell, so I thought, well, why should I bother?" Freedom: Oh. Listen. One of the joys of my life was talking to those Persian carpet experts when they came, because they did know, they did know. And this collection was highly representative of any collection in this hemisphere, because there are, what is it, thirty eight thousand square feet of Persian carpets? Judith: Yeah, they're all very different. Freedom: And only one green (the holy color of the Muslims, very rare). That's on Tour 3, that's in Ms. Morgan's, the room that she used when she came down. It's also a Meshed (or Mashad). When I said something about true and false; this has nothing to do with anything either, except that I think it's very funny... You know the "Frank and Ernest" cartoons? O.K. Here's the old couple sitting there, and this little kid. The caption says: "In school, it's mostly true and false, kid, but in real life it's all essay questions." ______________: Would you repeat what you said about Wyntoon? Freedom: Wyntoon? It's a Bavarian village. And only recently has the corporation continued filling it out. You see, Ms. Morgan had those woodcarvers do all of this marvelous wood carving to fill out the places that were incomplete from those war ravaged vestiges of European structures. Of course, that's still in the Hearst family, that Wyntoon development. That was his mother's property. It burned in the early thirties, so he rebuilt, and he built something that Phoebe had never dreamt of in her wildest stretches. It's full of wonderful turrets, and it's a Bavarian village. And I don't know the number of buildings, but they're identified as "The House of the Bear," "The House of Cinderella," "Hans Christian Anderson House," and so and so. It's in Weed. on the McCloud River, right at the base of Mt. Shasta. So it's not all that far from you. McCloud and Weed are the closest towns. I don't think that you can just go and look at it. Because, as I say, it is a private estate. I almost got to go there. Pat: They don't even want you to go by in the river. My boys went rafting... Freedom: Isn't that a pretty treacherous river there? Pat: They didn't say. They just said they went by and could see it on the way down. Freedom: And somebody objected? Caretakers? Pat: Evidently they do. I don't know if he went with somebody who let them in. Sandra: Isn't that where they took Patty after they got her out of prison? Freedom: At Wyntoon? I don't know. I would like to begin with a rousing thank you to Tirza, and everybody who lent her a hand, including Nate, because she really has not only worked herself to the bone preparing this taking care of every detail. And I mean to say lots and lots of details in the arrangement of this whole thing. And in fact, this whole thing was her idea... Tirza: No it wasn't. It was Ahmad's. Since we couldn't go to Trinity, couldn't we go away, and Cambria be nice? So it was Ahmad's idea. Freedom: All Divine Ideas are from the same Source, and I have to say this has been a Divine Idea. My friend Judith, and I'm not only speaking of my friend, Judith Shadzi here, but I have a local friend here whose name is Judith, and she is a professional actress, and her favorite adjective is "divine." "Oh, it was divine!" And she is an avowed atheist and proud of it (Laughter). Needless to say, I never mention my work. She knows I'm doing this this weekend. She's always delighted that I should do it, but she's not interested. "Don't ever try to speak of it to me!" I have friends of every walk. So again, let's hear for Tirza and Bruce and everybody who lent them a hand, because I know that many people did lend a hand. Tirza: They sure did. Especially Bruce. Jan did dishes for an hour and a half this morning (Laughter) Freedom: Well, bless your heart. Tirza: And Ahmad. Freedom: I can't help but think that there is hope for the future. That adorable child (referring to Marisol). Ron: Tirza, do you want to...? Tirza: Do you want to say that now? Go ahead, Ron. Ron: Freedom, I asked Freedom yesterday if he would be interested in coming to Santa Cruz to do one at our place. It's really up to him... Freedom: He said, "What are the chances?" And I said, "Slim." Did I say slim to none or did I go so far as to say non-existent. The thing is, of course, the thing that made this possible is that it's here. I didn't have to travel go. I don't know whether that's just of sign of admitting my old age or what, but for years and years and years, I had to travel to do all this, and I supposedly retired when I retired from the castle 14 years ago, but April Fool. If anyone wants to think that this has been retirement, you'll have to write a new definition. So anyway, what were you going to say about that? Ron: I have the place available, if you wanted to come... Freedom: It sounded very attractive the way he described the available space. There's room for plenty of chairs to be set up; there's a big rec. area; and there's also a place where I could even stay. And it all does sound... I said, "Let's kick it around." Without letting saying absolutely no... You remember from Philadelphia Story when someone offered Tracy Moore, played by Katherine Hepburn, something, she said, "Thanks, thanks alot, but no thanks." I don't want to take it that far; I won't say, "no thanks," I do say, "Thanks alot," and we will consider. We'll also consider from the constituents what would be the best time of year. Tirza: How difficult is it to travel in say January, February or March? Is it really too rainy? Freedom: From here, this is when we get the worst of our winter. I can remember being stranded; I had driven home from Los Angeles in a pouring, drenching storm that had gone on for twenty four hours, and I got as far as Pismo Beach where the Highway Patrol pushed us all off, and headed every northbound car back south. So I followed the off-ramp, and I went into a filling station and said, "How do I get over onto Highway 1?" He said, "You can't." San Luis Obispo is under water. I had no choice but to turn around and go back. So I have a very dim view of taking or committing myself to a trip in December through mid-March. This is a no-no. So when you're casting around for possibilities, please don't consider that time. Is that a crown of thorns that she has made? (Referring to a flower head band that Marisol had made with Hella.) Freedom: O.K. We left off last time at the end of the Good Samaritan. I wanted to begin today with the first of Revelation . And just as a preamble to it, where it says: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Who now bare record of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." (Rev. 1:1-3) So, what I want to do today is get this sense that all of this is a Revelation of Your Own Being at the point of Self discovery. So I wrote down here to myself to say: Verses 1-3 deals from Whom, to Whom and by way of Whom. It is from God... It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gives to Jesus Christ by His servant John. And not one of those names is anything external to Your Being. God in His manifestation Is One indivisible Being, One inseparable Being; there's no place where God stops and manifestation begins. Manifestation is Consciousness seeing itself. I know that anyone having the same Christian Science discipline that I have comes across the term "man is reflection." And there is a wonderful illustration given about man before the mirror. Look at yourself before the mirror, let's say. Have this set up: there's you, the mirror, and what appears in the mirror. In Science and Health, it will say, "call the man before the mirror - God; call the mirror - Divine Science; and call the reflection - man." And then see how true, according to Science, is the reflection to its original. It's a wonderful illustration, but if you take it too literally, you're inclined to think that that thing in that mirror, if that's me, it isn't even there. It's not another thing at all. And this is what I mean to get at: it isn't. It's only in Divine Science that that reflection is seen. But this is where you have to redefine your word reflection. Some people have the same difficulty with the use of that word as they have with the use of the word "destroys" certain things. They the same sense of destruction that some have with the word "reflection." So when you understand destruction to be what disappears in your new recognition. You realize there's been no obliteration; there's been no abolishment; there's been no bludgeoning out of existence; or burning to unrecognizable ashes. What has happened is something has been more correctly seen, and the incorrect seeing has vanished, in the illusion that it always was. So then, if you understand destruction in that sense, let's consider now the word "reflection" in a better sense, and if I may impose my definition of it, I would call it: Self Cognition. Now that doesn't differ at all from the illustration of a man seeing himself in a mirror. That is self re-cognition, almost. But Self Cognition - if every time you come across the term "reflection" and it bothers you at all, as though it were speaking of "otherness," think in terms of Self Cognition. Because now, I know that almost anybody is given to what's called "soul searching." There are times you sit down, and you reflect upon your past. You reconsider a lot; you run it past your views. Now, that kind of reflection, I would say, is the kind I mean, but Consciousness is not reflecting on a past, since it is always a present thing - past, present and future are temporal definitions. They're not, as I have told in the new book in that one place about... strictly speaking there is not temporal now; there is a temporal future and a temporal past, but the minute any future second arrives, it's ticking off into a past, so there is no usable now in temporal measurement. But, on the other hand, in this eternity, where is no limitation, it is always a present happening. This is the eternal now in which we work. This is the eternal now from which we speak in this whole presentation. So, when it says it's a vision from - from Consciousness - to whom - to Its highest Awakened Sense of Self - by way of whom - John - and you who have read the books know that John is the disciple known as compassion. (Question) It's Revelation 1:1-3. Barbara Would I define compassion? Yes. I will define by using a question that came in, in the way of observation almost... someone who wrote who has the new book already says: "I also deal daily with the Trustworthy Twelve as explicated in the twelfth and amethyst. Sometimes one and sometimes another needs to be dusted off and put back into good honest current use. Lately, it's been compassion. The paragraph on this is to the point. Forgiveness is certainly the handmaid of compassion and not so easy for me. Especially forgiveness of oneself. It's easier to think of compassion as concerning others. A point of conflict can arise when we consider the established fact that we are finally responsible for whatever comes into our experience. (The buck stops here.)" And we must trace every appearance back to our acceptance of it. How then, to exercise compassion and forgiveness to what appears as a self so undisciplined as to continue be continually off the track and getting mired down in the swamp of accepting unsatisfying states as actual conditions. So, compassion is the practice of this art of self forgiveness, because who is here? Only one. And having, let us say, gone to sleep to its totality, its Divinity, and locked into this dramatized portrayal of itself as a person, in a place, doing a certain thing, among billions of other persons in that same place, doing certain things. The Awakening definitely requires the discipline of all twelve of those disciples, and John is the one defined as compassion - John, "the beloved." So if you love your Being sufficiently to be willing to surrender the limited senses previously held of that Being in expression, that's going to... I will not say you don't have to do it, and do it, and do it, and do it. Because we have been creatures of habit, and we have habitually accepted ourSelves as one among many. But the logic of this is, there is only One; Consciousness is not a divisible substance, so it can not be in any way approached through what appears as another. But if I see something dramatized as another, and it's offensive to me, I can first start by forgiving what I see, only because I know what is really true in its place. And the Art of Forgiveness is my sense of Compassion. But it ultimately, while it will start out apparently as forgiving what appears as an obnoxious person doing an obnoxious prank, or whatever, eventually, it comes right back to the place where I have to admit where the buck stops... and I have to forgive this self of me for ever having completely believed the illusive, by that I mean the "ill," it's not an elusive illusion, but the illusion that I was ever stuck in that. Now, what about compassion? Are there other senses of it, so we can make sure its... does that clarify it for anyone? Did it for you, Barbara? (Inaudible) You transform the mist-take view. Speaking of that, may I mention that... Vern? Talk about geniuses... I guess perhaps he was just tired of hearing me moan about the most grievous of the twelve mistakes in Passkey was that my paraphrasing in Genesis 2:7 - "And the Lord God (this clouded sense of self) formed man(-ifestation) from the dust of the ground (conceivable states) and breathed into his nostrils the breath (semblance) of life..." they got that one right, but the verse before that, Genesis 2:6, is where they made, to me, the most grievous error in the final printing. This had all been proof-read and corrected on the proof. But in our marvelous new age of computer mentality, the computer threw out that mistake where I said: "But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground (Consciousness shrinks in degree of keenness, and perceptions become a mistaken view)." The computer threw that out, because mistaken is obviously one word, with one t and no hyphen. Well, I have bellyached about it enough, and Vern has brought twenty-five pages that any of you can have, and correct your book, and he will show you how. It's page twenty-one of Passkey and here are twenty-five copies, and I'm going to give them back to Vern, and you see him and let him give you one. I don't deny that it is a mistaken view, but what I say is the punch that would make it last was drained out of the page by the computer deciding that the writer didn't know. And on the other hand, the world "trustworthy," it added a hyphen, and made it "trust-worthy," or desire-able. How nice. Then anybody reading the book says the author is obviously stupid; he doesn't know that trustworthy is one word - desirable is one word. O.K. Shut up. Yes? Tirza: There is another word in the word compassion: the word "passion" is very much a part of the word compassion. And if you take that passion that you've had for the drama, and take it back to the passion of Being, there's an Aspect, because of the deep, emotional conviction. Freedom: That's a lovely expansion of the use of the word. If you can be as passionate in your devotion to the Discovery, as you have been to the misconception. I can remember Neville saying, using his system, he would say: "It's all a matter of intensity." And he said, "People will say, 'I hate that son of a bitch,' but who will say with that same degree of intensity: 'Isn't she nice?'" If you can put that much intensity... I think this is what Tirza is saying, that the passion that has been spent and misspent were redirected with that intensity, you could bring in the millenium. Love what You Are, not the shape you... with the same degree of intensity, wouldn't it be wonderful to want that? And it does take an emotional response. Jan: It's dancing, right? The Dance of Love. Freedom: There you go. Judith: This is an important point that compassion is forgiving our-selves. We usually think of compassion as being nice to other people. And actually, at first, that is what they taught us, you fell into sin, Adam fell into sin, and because of that you're in sin, and we can't be forgiven. We've don't realize that we really haven't forgiven ourselves for being this miserable being that we are. Freedom: And that, of course, is when that being who's been doing it is awake to his misuse of His Substance, His Powers, and sees what He really Is. That's real compassion because that's forgiveness - to awake out of the illusion. Every time a truth is seen about a lie, that is a very compassionate act, isn't it? When the truth of it is seen. That's forgiveness in the real sense. (Inaudible question) Freedom: I think that's what the author of this that I just read you said in his letter. It's says we must trace every appearance back to our acceptance of it. How then to exercise compassion and forgiveness towards what appears as a self so undisciplined as to be continually getting off the track and getting mired down in the swamp of accepting unsatisfying states as actual conditions. So you see, essentially, you are saying the same thing in a different set of words. Wonderful. (Inaudible question) Freedom: You see. That's the proof of this premise, that the whole, what lies at the very crux of every issue is my acceptance of existence as something separate from the Cause of It. When I see that there's nothing outside of the infinitude of this Cause, then I begin to wait and continue to wait, and continue to wait... and by process of repetition, however many times it's necessary to go back and remind yourself, and do it again and again and again, this is discipline. It's very good. In one of these places, I've mentioned this collegue of mine at the castle who said, "Don't use the word discipline in my presence. It's a provoking term, because discipline means punishment. His father used to spank him when he disciplined him. Incidently, if there are any of you who don't know about Seven Salient Subjects , I had some done so that they would be ready for this conference, and Jenny has the floppy disk of it to do the real final issue of it. But if any of you wants to get this, I have some; I had enough made that you can have some. O.K. There was another one here I had from someone... Also from Revelation , we may get to this a little later, but while I have this right on tap: What is marriage of the Lamb? The Bride and the Lamb? Divine Coincidence? Not an event, but a revelation of what is already done. That's the observation of this person who wrote in, and it is absolutely right on. Absolutely true. What appears in the revelation as it's coming to you as a discovery, where the Bride... it shows you coming down from New Jerusalem, the Lamb wedded to His Bride. Well, the Bride and the Lamb, that wedding is a Divine Coincidence, it's not an event, but a revelation of the inseparatability of Cause/Effect, that It's Self Cognition includes. (Inaudible question) It's probably in Chapter 21. I know I have it laid out for us to consider. So continuing on in Chapter 1 of Revelation , this is the vision (it's Revelation 1:10-17) : "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Lasodicea." There are seven of them, you noticed. "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace;" (the furnace of affliction) "and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenanced was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:". So that's the vision. I think, maybe, that this is a place to digress... was it you, Vicki, that asked yesterday, "What pushed you into this kind of work?" Vicki: Yes. Freedom: I thought it was. Some of you know what pushed me into it. I was twenty years old and dying of heart trouble in Boston, as a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, where I was going to become a concert pianist. God knows, I never did. I hadn't the temperament to handle that, but out of... Somebody who knew my condition (someone who was a Christian Scientist who was also a student at the Conservatory) suggested I go to that church. Well, I had the vilest misconception of what that might be, even though I kept my alarm clock set by the chime in its tower. I still thought of it as the work of the devil. My earliest recollection of the term "Christian Science" was that Christian Scientists don't take medicine when they're sick. And that's all it meant. And there were stories in circulation that the discoverer of Christian Science was a fraud; that she sent a dummy in her fur coat riding in a carriage every day so that people wouldn't know she was at home really sick. I can remember when that story was told me when I was a child, I can remember rebelling at the story, thinking it must be outrageous. Well, it apparently was an outrageous part of a diatribe. The fact was, Mrs. Eddy never originated Christian Science. She says in her own words, "In the year 1866, I discovered the Divine Laws of Life, Truth and Love, and named my discovery "Christian Science." She didn't invent it; she discovered something that was true, just the way Sutter did not invent gold, he discovered it in the California hills. It was there; he never claimed to have made it. Mrs. Eddy never claimed to have made Christian Science. She did discover the laws, and having been an invalid for the first forty five years of her life, spent the next forty five establishing her discovery, by writing it out in book form and teaching. Those are the things I found out after this event. One particular Sunday morning, and this was the 7th of May, 1941, I followed my colleague's advice at the Conservatory and went to a Sunday morning church service. And I would have fallen asleep, as far as the service was concerned, because I felt it very dull, because there was no pomp; there was no parade; there was no anything. Even the pastors were not preachers; they were pastors of the Bible and Science and Health . The impersonal pastors of that Church of Christ Scientists. But, while I was sitting there, being bored to death, I was also reading the inscriptions in the limestone walls of the edifice, and I kept reading this one, over and over, because it made very good sense to me. It's the place where it says: "If sin makes sinners; Truth and Love can unmake them." Well, that wasn't the crux of it; that was the beginning of it. The thing that really hit me was this: "If the sense of disease produces suffering, and the sense of ease antidotes it; disease is mental. Hence, the human mind alone suffers, and the Divine Mind alone heals it." And I kept reading that to the place where it seemed clear to me that human mind and Divine Mind were not two separate things, because what she had said was, if the sense... she didn't say disease produces suffering, she said, "if the sense of disease produces suffering, and the sense of ease antidotes it," this is... and right there it was hyphenated to fit it into the plaque on the wall, it gave me a new sense of the word "disease." "Dis-ease" is mental, hence, the human mind alone suffers, and the Divine Mind alone heals it. Well, it seemed to me that human and Divine were opposite poles of One Mind, because it had a sense of suffering and it had a sense of ease that cured it. Well, the fact was, I experienced the most remarkable release when I took off my glasses that were at that time as thick as my thumb, since I had worn glasses from the age of 10. I was getting blinder and blinder. I even learned to read and write Braille when I was a sophomore in high school because I was so certain that I was losing my vision completely. And while reading, reading, reading, my eyes watered, and I took the glasses off to wipe away the water and without the glasses, I could see around that auditorium that seats 5,000 people. I could see every last semicolon inscribed in the limestone. I suddenly realized that I had experienced what is called a healing, because I had discovered something very different about what Mind Is. I rushed back to the dormitory and told this friend of mine, who had suggested I go; I don't know why he didn't go. He said, " What are you doing off the first floor?" For a year and a half, I hadn't climbed stairs because of this heart condition that was supposed to obliterate me before I was twenty; I'm seventy five! Anyway, I told him what had happened, and I said it took care of that, too. So I went back, and I piled all the dope I'd by way of Digitalis and stuff (I call it "dope"), I put it in a sack and threw it down the garbage chute of the dormitory and that was the end of that. And I've been in remarkably sound health for more than fifty years hence. So when you ask, "What pushed me into that kind of work?" That did. So I got a job at the Publishing Society where the periodicals went. The zeal of a convert; there's no zeal like that of a convert. I joined the church; I served in every capacity, except when they nominated me to be first reader of the church I joined in Hollywood, I was not for that. Then, they asked me to be on the Board of Directors; I will not have any of that where you stand in judgment on all the rest of them. So as it kept unfolding, and I saw the restrictiveness of the personal aspect of running an organization, five directors in Boston... (end of tape 3, side A) Well, I won't go into church history, but it's been through litigation time and again, and whole churches disappeared back in 1922. See, once Mrs. Eddy was gone from the scene in 1910, the Board of Directors immediately began deciding how can they move into her position as Pastor Emeritus and run things themselves? The Board of Directors was a trust set up in the matter (inaudible), and another trust constituting the Board of Trustees for the Publishing Society. They were two completely separate trusts operating under the authority of the Church Manual. And you might say it's like the three branches of government: you have executive, judiciary and congressional or legislative. With the Pastor Emeritus gone from the scene, here were the directors in that position, and they were lording it over... they fired a member, in order to test their powers, they fired a member of the Board of Trustees. Well, that, of course, put them into litigation, and it finally was decided in favor of the directors because somebody saw which side the bread was buttered on. As I say, at that time, whole churches disappeared from the roster around the world. Well, I never lost my interest in increasing my understanding of the revelation as given in Science and Health and the other writings. So while I severed my connection with the Board, at a point when they began calling me on the carpet when I was teaching Sunday school, and I had the adult class. You can't go to Christian Science Sunday school after you're twenty years old, according to the manual. It was a very wise decision (inaudible). I started to say, I was being called on the carpet by the branch church because it must be personal adulation because I'm the only teacher in the Sunday school that has a full class. 'They come early and they stay late... they have to put you out in order to lock up the church. Then they stay there on the lawn for another hour. It's personal adulation." Well, finally, I will say in favor of one lady on the Board who had a son and a daughter in that class, she said... She's such a timid little soul. She said, "I would like to say that whatever may be wrong, my son and my daughter are doing their own work now. I don't have the practitioner bills I used to have." Ron: You know them by their fruits. Freedom: Casting around, through the years, I widened the limits of what I would read. I found myself reading everything under the sun, and one of my erst-patients from Christian Science days got me a library copy of Your Faith Is Your Fortune by one called Neville, and said "I know you read everything now, and this is nothing but manipulation and hypnotism, but I wonder what you think of it. It's from the library, so when you finish, return it to the library yourself, I don't need it." There was not a jacket on it; there was not a thing to tell me a word about Neville; there was nothing but the content of that book. I spent the night reading it, and at 4:00 o'clock in the morning, I was walking my cocker spaniel up and down Vespers Avenue in Van Nuys, looking through buildings, looking through trees. Everything was so transparent, I could see it all. And I thought, where have I been? So I put down the name of the publisher who was listed in Los Angeles. G. & J. Publishing, not J. & L. Somebody in Cambria who saw this circular, and said, "I thought Grace and Jack went out of business." He was looking at G. & J., the publishers of Neville's book. I asked them if there were any other books, because Your Faith Is Your Fortune was his first book, and this library copy didn't list any others. I said, "Where can I get more of these books, are there any more?" They said, "Oh yes, and Neville lives here now; he doesn't live in New York any more; he lives in Los Angeles, and he lectures twice a week at the Wilshire on Mondays and Thursdays. You can get his books there." Well, the very next Thursday, I went the first chance I could, and I could hear his voice coming over the loud speaker, but I would not go in. I bought one book because that's all I could afford to pay for it. I took Freedom for All. On the following Monday, I went again. I bought Prayer, The Art of Believing. The next Thursday, I went again, and I bought Feeling Is the Secret . One by one, I bought his books, until I had them all. Reading them without going in to hear him, because I knew myself so well (they say you're a star worshipper). When you find somebody who gives himself so completely to what he's doing, I knew that by going in to see him or hear him, before I had read his entire output, I knew I was subject to one of two things. Either he would be such a disappointment, such that I wouldn't pursue it, or else, he would be so magnetic that I would believe anything, no matter what he told me. So avoided going to see him and hear him until I had read all that he had written. And I read, as Ahmad was saying this morning, in Iran, when you speak criticism, it has a negative connotation, they're inclined to find fault with you. I was very much like that. I was reading all of Neville's books seeing where he was going to trip himself up. And I couldn't find a place that he did. So, when I had read them all, the next Monday, I went to the lecture, and there I began kicking myself up and down all the hills that I wasted the opportunity, because this began to unfold. I went back to see him after the first lecture. I said, "Do you teach privately?" He said, "No." As short as that. He said, "You are the operant Power." Not meaning my person, although I'm afraid I must have thought at that time that was what he meant. "You are the operant Power." He said that it's a Pinciple that proves itSelf in performance. "I no longer take individual students." Well, I continued going; this was then in June until he closed. I heard him five or six times before he closed and went for his two weeks in San Francisco. When he came back from San Francisco, I gave him two case histories of where I had put it to work. He was delighted. So, I never missed a single lecture from then until the calendar had come around another year, and he went to San Francisco, and that was where he had this "Birth from Above," which changed the entire direction of his teaching. And that hall was full when he opened. It held three hundred people there in the Fine Arts Auditorium at the Wilshire in Los Angeles. That hall was full, and he told this shocking story in the most literal terms of being born through the skull of his head as a womb opens. And the next night, that was on Monday, the next Thursday, there were thirty people. The next Monday, there were twelve. He kept telling it, and so after the third night, and the audience was down to twelve, Freddy Messenger, who was his agent, he said, "Neville, you've got to stop telling that story or you'll have no audience at all." He said, "Then I'll tell it to the bare walls." And Neville would have. That's the beauty of it, and he almost did. He did begin shaving off those rough edges; those very clinical aspects of the way it was being told. He certainly did no modify in any way the meaning of it. It was pure Scripture, but told in the language of person, in a place, doing a thing. So, when he had this vision of being born from above, and his own audience was falling away, and he asked me... he had his wife ask me when I bought my ticket to go in, he said, "Ask him if he will give us a ride home tonight, because Neville never drove in his life; he never owned a car; he never had a driver's license; neither did his wife. I was so delighted to have those people in my car; they were the stars. I even washed the car. (Laughter) Drive them home - boy would I! He fixed me the most potent double scotch. Neville adored a good martini. I've seen him finish a pitcher of martinis and go right on the platform without... he said, "I just like the lift it gives me." He was never "under the influence." But he certainly did love it. In fact, someone in his audience... I was there one night and she said, "Neville, I have heard it said that you drink. Do you drink?" He said, "Do I drink?! Of course, I drink." And he said, "May I tell you I do nothing in moderation." (Laughter) He said, "They used to tell me, 'You're just like your father,' and I am. My father finished a fifth of gin every morning of his life before ten o'clock." That was Neville-magnificent _____________. Anyway, he asked me that night if I would go to San Francisco and teach. I said, "I don't know anything about teaching. I'd never taught anything but Sunday school in my life. He said, "The principle proves itself in performance. I can't give you a nickel, but you're presentable and articulate. You understand this obviously from the case histories you've sent me. And when you write, it's literate. I don't have to rephrase it. I can put this just as you wrote it. I can put it in a book. So I would like you, since they would like me to come to San Francisco more often and I can't; I live in Los Angeles; I would like you to go there. I'll give you my list." He said, "Do you have a list?" I said, "A list of what?" I could have been a laundry list; I didn't know. So he put his mailing list in San Francisco at my disposal. Sandra: What year was that? Freedom: 1960. I moved there on New Year's Day. Bernard and his mother drove me and my cocker spaniel to San Francisco, and I said good-bye to the south land I thought forever. Encouraged by Neville's great vision that everybody that had come to him, and he had filled the Scottish Rite Auditorium, they would all be there for me. That's what he felt sure would be the case. So I gave myself a month to get myself together in San Francisco. I sent out my notices to start on February 3rd in the little book store where his agent, Lord and Jordan (there's always a "J" in his agents, isn't there?). These publishers all seem to have a "J". They let me have the use of their little metaphysical book store which would seat thirty people. I might have it... he said, "You'll have to have it at least 6 times a week if you're going to seat thirty people each time." So I sent notices that I would have the lecture at 12:00 on Monday, at 2:00 on Monday and at 7:30 or perhaps 8:00 on Monday evening. And I was going to do the same on Thursday, but by that time, the bookstore had already left that evening; that was mine. So I had five chances to make it. Admission was $1.00 each. Well, at my first meeting, the heavens opened that day and drenched, talk about the deluge of Noah. The city was washed clean in the heaviest rain I ever saw in the years I lived there. Three people came to my 12:00 o'clock lecture. There were 6 at the 2:00 o'clock, and in the evening, it was full. They could come in the evening, I learned by that. On Thursday, there were 4 people at the noon lecture. Word got around, I guess. But by the end of the first month, it was quite obvious that we were not going to get anywhere, because there was only one evening that anybody could come. So I turned to Sunday mornings, and moved to the Marine's Memorial Club where there was an auditorium to seat enough people, and they began coming. But not very many. It was very disappointing, and pretty soon, they came out from under the woodwork and began tell me, "Why don't you give up and go back to Los Angeles. You don't have any audience, you're never going to have an audience here." I wondered about that for awhile until someone the network came out and said, "You know you're never going to get this off the ground here because there is a group of Neville's students that are going to see to it that you don't succeed." And it was in the picture; there was a network that gone around saying "he's just a fraud; Neville never sent him; Neville wouldn't do a thing to us like that. If he were going to have anyone speak in San Francisco, I would have been the one that he would have sent." So I wrote to Neville about it, and his wife always wrote the letters, I have the letter he wrote back to me. "Let no one dissuade you. My vision has never lied to me. If you could not do it, I would never have been told to send you." Period. That's Neville. He could be brief. He spoke of someone who went on and on and on, and he said "she's a woman of a few million words." So anyway, I did go, and I did teach there until 1975. By that time, I'd been doing the Castle stint, but I did have to travel. But I've gotten off my chronology. When Neville came back from his stay in Barbados, he had gone home to die; he was in terrible shape. Everybody had told him he was going to last, and he, himself, didn't believe he was going to, so he wanted me to take over his Los Angeles audience. That was when I came to Cambria, because it was half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. If I'd gone by the picture, I would have stayed in San Francisco, because the Los Angeles... the night he introduced me to his Los Angeles audience, they were there in full force at the Women's University Club, and it was full. O.K. The next day, he, Bill and their daughter went back to Barbados, and the next time I had maybe fifteen people there. The Los Angeles bunch never took over; it didn't work there. So I began living in Cambria and going to San Francisco to do it, and then it was after I stopped that that Viv invited me to come. That was back in 1984 that I went up and did the Holy Week class. So I guess that's the history of it... (Inaudible question) Everytime he came, I was always with him, as one brought up with him. Neville swore, he said, "You're the only one that I've authorized to speak my work." I haven't spoken his work exactly, and he knows that. He said, "I don't want you to say what I say. This thing must unfold. It's totally different. The funny thing was, though, when I went to San Francisco, when they did come, they'd say, "Are you his son? You look just like Neville." Well, I look no more like Neville than I do like a hummingbird. What they were seeing was that the likeness or the similarity of viewpoint and the message that was coming forth was somewhat the same. I started out giving Neville credit for every word I was saying, even though it was pretty obvious after a while that I was going in a different direction away from the... what he called "the difference between the law and the Promise." My work was more and more in the Promise, and it was not told in that language of being born from above, because it's an experience that I've never had. I believe every word of it; I know that it's true because Neville is like that. One day, when someone said, "He just has hallucinations; he's standing up there telling us a bunch dreams that he has; they're just all illusion," and he heard somebody say something like that, and he said, "This body disintegrate in your presence if what I'm telling you isn't the absolute Truth." He was calling on such Power to destroy him if it weren't absolutely True. So you know you can believe Neville; if he said it, you know it was true. _______________: Would his disappearance have proved it or disproved it? Freedom: When it finally did disappear, it went exactly in accord with the way he said it would happened. He said, "Someday, without any previous warning, someone will say, 'He probably had a heart attack.'" ______________: Is that how he died? Freedom: Apparently, that was the diagnosis. Of course, there was no one with him at the time. ______________: It had nothing to do with a fifth of gin every morning? Freedom: (Inaudible) He did, in those last years, after he went back to Barbados... One of his brothers was a doctor who had practiced in Canada, and he went back to Barbados to retire, and he got him back to where he was well, but he also greatly reduced the intake of gin. In fact when they did the medical examination when his daughter found his body the next morning (she went to the apartment and had to let herself in and there he was), the examiner said was he a heavy drinker? That was the first question. Sandra: Why? Freedom: Because, apparently there had been this sudden aneurysm that just exploded. Apparently there was blood everywhere, all over the place. I don't want to get into that picture of it, but what he said was: "When it happens, they will say, 'Oh, he probably died of a heart attack.'" He so identified himSelf as what he really is, that he wouldn't think in those physical terms at all. In fact, his wife told me that he asked her one day early in that year, he said, "How many days is it from a certain date in July, 1969 to October 1, 1972?" This is in the spring of 1972 he asked her that. And so she figured it out, and it was 1,260 days, whatever it is from the Book of Daniel. That was the time from the vision of being born from Above to the date of the Resurrection. So he made his exit in the wee hours of the morning of October 1, 1972. And she said to me, "Why did he choose that day?" And I said, "I don't think he chose it, I think it was revealed to him. I think he knew that it was that day. He didn't personally select it." Yes, Vern? Vern: In San Francisco, Neville said very few words about his relationship with Abdullah except that he worked with him seven days a week for seven years. Did he ever tell you about his...? Freedom: Yes, indeed. Did Neville tell me about his work with Abdullah? See, the thing is, Neville's meeting with Abdullah almost didn't come off because Neville resisted it. Neville had a friend who was a Catholic priest who said, "There is someone here in New York City who speaks something that is akin to what you say. I think you ought to get together." He said, "I wouldn't trust that priest as far as I could spit." He said, "He knew all the best places to eat and drink, but I didn't trust him on matter of spiritual perception. So I said, 'Forget it.'" So he put it off and put it off. The priest kept nagging him to come and meet this man. So six months had gone by from the time he first started persuading him to when he actually went with him. They opened the door, without any word being spoken Abdullah said, "Neville, (a total stranger) you're six months late. The brothers told me you were coming." The "brothers" meaning from Abdullah "the Society of Awakened God." So, "the brothers told me you were coming." He worked with him... by saying worked with him, Neville was not in a position to pay for instruction because he didn't have a sou, but he worked for him. He cleaned his apartment, and Abdullah taught him Hebrew. He taught him the language, he taught him the basics of what later became Neville's Premise. So after Abdullah had decided that Neville had enough, and this was seven full years, he just closed his doors to everybody. He didn't take in the newspapers, he didn't take in the milk when it was delivered, and this was his way of telling Neville "you're out of the nest, you have to go, you have to do it." So Neville borrowed $5.00 from the woman who became his wife, he hired a room in which to speak, and he went out to give the first lecture he had ever given, and just as he was ready to leave, there came a knock at the door. He opened it and here's this little boy that looked like the picture of any run away child you've ever seen with a little bandanna with his worldly belongings carried over his shoulder and a note from his mother, who was Neville's divorced wife. She had divorced him because she couldn't take his interest in the esoteric, and he had done everything and used every persuasion he could to get custody of that son. Nothing would persuade her. Here of his own accord he comes and there is reenacted the scene that he had done in his mind's eye when he was working that system to get the custody of his child. He used to imagine that he was standing behind his dining chair, with his hand cupped over the child's head. So, he said, "Here was this boy with his bundle of goods and a note from his mother saying, ' there is someone else in my life, I haven't room for the three of us.'" She had sent him home to his father. He brought him in, gave him supper and took him with him to the first lecture he ever gave. He said, "If I ever needed to know that what I was telling was the truth, I had proof before I took the platform for the first time." I've heard it said that Neville met Abdullah on his way to one of his lectures. Well, Neville had never given a lecture until after he had worked for seven years for Abdullah. Besides teaching him Hebrew, he taught him the basics of Greek, so he would understand the Source of Scripture. _________________: (Inaudible question) Freedom: Nothing. As far as any religion, Neville never learned religion, he was a Church of England... he was an Anglican, Episcopalian, you might say, by upbringing. His upbringing was Church of England, Anglican... (Inaudible question) Neville had been having visions since the time he was seven years old, so what Abdula was teaching him was essentially the Spiritual meaning of the New Testament. He said he dealt very little with the Old Testament. Vern: (Inaudible) He told us one time what happened during the seven years of his childhood. He said it happened every month, he always knew when it was coming, and he dreaded it... Freedom: He dreaded having visions. Vern: He'd go to sleep at night and he would be a wave that the ocean was tossing into the air and then catching again. It frightened him, he said. And then all of a sudden, they stopped... Freedom: He had visions, he never stopped having visions from the time he was seven years old until he made his exit. He may still be having them for all I know, because the birth from Above was... What? Tirza: This may be one of them. Freedom: Right. This may be one of them. I don't know why we got off on all that. ____________: I think it was wonderful. Tirza: His name means "dweller in the New Estate," which is, of course, exactly what he stood for. Freedom: You see, according to Abdullah, Neville meant "prophet of God." That's what Abdullah told him his name meant. ___________: Is his daughter still alive? Freedom: Yes, Vicki... she was born in 1942. She lives in Los Angeles. We're in touch. She's not interested in this at all. She is the executor of his estate, and has charge of the publishing of his books. His son, by the first marriage, lives in Barbados. His name is Neville Joseph, Jr., but he has always gone by the name of Joe. He didn't want any of this Neville stuff. __________: Did his wife die? Freedom: His wife died, she followed him in two years. ____________: Isn't there an autobiography on him, other than like yourself...? Freedom: No. There is no written biography of Neville. ____________: He had a TV show...? Freedom: He did lectures for twenty six weeks on television in Los Angeles. __________: Are there any tapes? Freedom: They didn't have tapes in those days. That's a technology that's been developed since.... However, the content of those meetings, because those were little fifteen minute time slots, the content of those meetings are on two thirty rpm disks. Do you have access to those, Jenny? The records? (Answer inaudible) If we made audio tapes of each of the records, could that be transcribed to further tapes? Would you like those? I can do that, because I have both the records. Jenny: Tell me about Grace and Jack; first of all, this morning I saw a book in her satchel, The Power of Awareness , going back published by... Freedom: G & J, Grace and Jack Weeks. I think they're both gone. I never met them; I don't know, I never met them. The time I telephoned their office, I talked with somebody, a clerk, in the office, but I never met Grace and Jack Weeks. Jenny: I was thinking what a gift they gave to all of us. Freedom: Really. And they told him when he tried to get Your Faith Is Your Fortune published, there was a publisher in New York that he took it to, they read it through and said, "You'll never sell ten copies of that book." I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold, because he used to fill Steinway Hall in New York three times a week, and they sold books every night, and that book has been through I don't know how many reprintings at 50,000 copies apiece. It's a wonderful... The first statement of his great vision... Are you freezing? Let's walk around a little bit and then we'll come back, and we must get into some of this material. Freedom: If anything is completely alien to your usual experience, don't immediately start assuming that you must be going crazy. It still may be prudent to avoid spreading around what you've experienced until it is clear to you what it indicates. But as far as the oddity of it is concerned, don't let it throw you. You know we spoke yesterday when they said Wagner was crazy because he sometimes climbed a tree and hooted like a owl, then they asked him what he thought would define sanity and he said, "To occasionally climb a tree and hoot like an owl." O.K. I'm thinking of William Blake saying, because he was constantly being told that he was insane and when they told him he was insane, he had just said that it will be said, "When you see the sun, do you not see a red fiery disk about the size of a guinea?" He said, "No, no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly hosts, singing 'Holy, Holy, Holy Is the Lord God Almighty.'" And they said, "He's insane." They said, "Look, there is not Alleluia Chorus ninety million miles out in space." He said, "Neither is there a guinea." It is whatever your enlarged and numerous senses can perceive, so if you suddenly find yourself confronted with your first vision of a flying saucer, before telling somebody that you've seen it and listening to them when they tell you you're nuts, there's no such thing... open up the possibility of there anything. Because whatever it is appearing, it will never be anything more than what you are appearing to you in the shape of your capacity to comprehend it. There is a Scriptural verse that covers that where it says, "God doth not tempt ye above that ye are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape." Since it is This Conscious Being awaking, it isn't going to come across something that it is not capable of handling. That should come as a reassurance. This is why Neville said that he did not... when he and Aldous Huxley took L.S.D., just to find out from their own experience what it was like, because there was a culture growing up around that at the time. So they had someone take notes of what they were saying while they were under the influence of lysergic acid. It took, incidentally, three times the dosage to put Neville under than it took to put Aldous Huxley under. And Neville said that the experience he had while under it was not terribly unlike the experiences he had from his own naturally unfolded visions. Everything was just as real as this is real; everything was three dimensional to him; everything had color, only sometimes the colors were intensified in vision beyond what they are in normal 3D. But he said, when he came out of it, he had the most monumental hangover he had ever had in his life, and he said his conviction was that is not a good thing for anybody to do, because those are artificially induced visions, and you may not be ready to handle them. Whereas, when it comes naturally, Consciousness is naturally awakening itself from its misconceptions about itself; when it comes naturally, with it comes the means of escape. With it comes the means of seeing through it; whereas, if it's artificially introduced, you may not, indeed, be capable of seeing it, and that's where you may go, as they say, around the bend. So this is where I say, "Exercise prudence." I'm not at all interested in experimenting with artificial ways. (The crows chatter interrupts, but Freedom says it doesn't bother him, because the crow is having such a good time.) Amad: (Asks question about what happens to us after death.) Freedom: What picture does one have of self after the experience called death. That's akin to what I was speaking to Bob about during the break. My sense of what happens after death is what has been happening all along. I speak of this as my body; actually what it is is an embodiment of my conceptions of myself. And my conceptions of myself have been altering since I can remember being conscious. I was conscious of being a very nervous, hyper-over active child. I was conscious of being an adolescent; I was conscious of being a young adult; I'm conscious of being an old adult. The fact is, all of those conceptions have been dying all along. I am here, and my current conception of myself must be here. The thing is, one hundred billion years from today, I, the timeless Being, will still be embodying some conception of myself, and that will appear me to be my body. As Neville said in visions, he never had any sense of being anyone other than Neville, even when he was embraced by the embodiment of Love, he knew he was Neville, even though the fusion was so intense that he knew what he really was. So then, when you say, "Where did he go?" He could not go away from where he was saying "I". We speak of this as being a third dimension. I speak of that as being a fourth dimension where Neville goes. Because, Neville was so Conscious of Being the Being that He Is, that the personal definition was of so little consequence to him that it could be dropped off at any second. But that didn't stop him from embodying something immediately that was very, perhaps, unlike what the medical examiner picked up and took away. In other words, the destruction of a misconception is not the demolishment of it as a physical act. What it is is an awakening to a better sense of it when the old sense disappears. You read that over and over again in... we will be doing that in Revelation where God wipes away all tears. There will be no more death. Why? Because the first sense has passed away, and there is no more sea. There isn't that ebbing and flowing, tossing and turning, forever changing... I see myself as I Am. And it's a never ending Self disclosure, so not having been there on that scene where Neville made that sudden discovery that he was instantly more than this and dropped that. What he did, I could not conjecture. I dare not say, because all of his experiences recorded in vision were things that were beyond anything I've ever experienced. Therefore, I have always said that those experiences... where he would put on the margins of his Bible the experiences like being born from Above with 7-16-59. Anything that was Scriptural, when he experienced it individually, he would make that notation in his Bible where that had been experienced. So what I'm saying is, the experience is recognizable to you in language that is familiar to you. It would not necessarily come that way... that experience I recorded in I Do where I was walking in San Francisco, and I suddenly had this experience of Being everything I saw; I was also this, but I was everything else. I was all there was to anything I saw. Well, that was in a sense, Being Born from Above. It wasn't in the terminology that Neville saw; it would never come necessarily in the same way... the scenery will not be the same in every case, so if you're waiting for that clinical birth from Above, I may say don't be disappointed if it hasn't happened yet, that doesn't mean you're dull at all. Vern: Neville said when he knew Abdullah, in our three dimensional world, he was a black Ethiopian Jew, but when he had a vision, Abdullah took the form of a Caucasian, but he was still recognizable to him as Abdullah, but he took the form of Caucasian. Freedom: Right. I heard somebody say to me that she prayed so hard... she knew of someone who... a black person who wanted to be white, and that she prayed so hard that she became white. I say what's wrong with accepting yourself as you are. I call that just plain manipulation again: a scene for a scene for a scene for a scene. Why not wake out of your nightmare of being white or being black or being whatever? You're so much more than that. Neville said that Abdullah in New York, this we're talking about New York in the '20's and the 1930's when what is called racial prejudice was so ripe that no black person either with all the money in the world would walk up to a box office and ask for a ticket in the orchestra, because black persons were seated behind posts in the cheap seats in the house no matter how much money they had. Neville said Abdullah never fell for that. He never let anyone buy a ticket for him; he was passionately fond of opera; he would walk right up the box office and say, "I would like two in fifth row center please," and they gave him two in fifth row center. He said, "No one ever discriminates against you because of the color of your skin; people discriminate against you because you have that sense of yourself, and he knew what he was talking about. (Inaudible question) Right. Therefore, it's all of me. What he's saying, and you know as well as I do, that what he is saying is what we've heard him say in other lectures that the observer is not separate from the observed, because the observer couldn't observe it if it were separate from the observer, they couldn't see it if it were not within the purview of the observer. So if what appears to me as everybody in human history being in this air, that air that it's in is Spiritual. It is not in this smog laden air of Los Angeles, let's say. It is in Being, and that's a purely Spiritual experience, and it's absolutely true that Infinite Consciousness Is All there Is to anything that has ever appeared as Jesus or Buddha or anyone else. (Inaudible question) The thing is when you say there, it is still not outside of the Consciousness of it, so I think that last paragraph of I Do may sum that up, where it says: "Instead of the many, unite them not make up One; One the Divine Imaginer expresses Its Living as the many, because of the limitless Nature of Its Own Being, it expresses it as others. (Inaudible question) Absolutely. It is the historical sense that suffers, and that historical sense is something that the I absorbed and maintained. I am plotting for myself to experience. This is why I love to teach the overcoming of dramatized states through the awakening of its counter-Feature in me, because only that way do I prevent that dramatized portrayal from... if I keep seeing the same thing enacted and reenacted, and reenacted I am inviting myself into playing that experience, because I still believe it to be a happening circumstance, and if I don't see through that condition, because it appears... if I've accepted as a paraded condition that is real, I haven't seen through it as a dramatized state, but the minute I have, I have spared myself the experience of having to put that on like a coat and wear that experience. It's in here someplace... Sandra: Is that the way the Jewish people keep teaching in school about the holocaust over and over; it's like they want to stay in it. Freedom: Right, and I know. I videotaped on PBS a couple of weeks ago the documentary on Menuhin, Yehudi Menuhin, the great violinist, the child prodigy, who when they lived in San Francisco when he was a little boy... in fact before he was born, she went, because they knew he was coming, she went to find a larger apartment and was refused... everything was right, they had plenty of money, until he said, "Well, we would never rent to a Jew." So he was born, they went someplace else and found a place, and he was born to be proud of being himself and he never ever made... It showed him addressing the Kennesset (sp?), and it showed him being very, very clear in his admonitions. He said, "The greatest mistakes you have made is you have perpetuated the belief that Jews were the only ones persecuated. There were many: Hungarians, gypsies, all kinds who were persecuted. The sympathy of the world has been used up. And to go on: The only answer to Jerusalem is keep it open and let anyone live there who will (End of Tape 3) Freedom: (Inaudible question) Right, and conversely, I think it was the same teacher who said: "It is more important to know that right is than to know what that right thing is to do." Because you can't really choose the right thing to do unless you have an absolute conviction that right IS. And that's why it says, "He the cometh to God must first believe that He Is." Well, does this mean that God Is or that the one who comes to God must first believe that He Is? If He Knows that He Is, He has to Know what He Is, that He is the Knower, and Being the Knower brings all that He Sees within the purview of His mentation. He can then do something about it. What's the picture of the time? I intended to be through with these seven letters to the seven churches, but we will come back to them if you're ready for lunch. Freedom: I would like tackle this concept of what "church" is. That experience that I told you this morning about what got me going in this whole thing happened in Boston in a building which is called "the Mother Church." And at the time that happened, I, of course, thought that this was all because I was at a certain place; I was in a church. So I joined the church; this is a big thing to do. Then, as I began to study, and I began to learn what this Revelation was all about... there is a definition of church in the Glossary of Science and Health , and it's in two paragraphs. The first paragraph defines church as: "the structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from Divine Principle." That means more to me today than it meant to me in 1941, because I see that the structure of Truth and Love is an eternal structure that is not material, and therefore not to be raised from the ground or destroyed back to the ground. It is an eternal structure of Truth and Love, whatever proceeds from by Principle. It rests upon and proceeds from Divine Principle. Now, there is a second paragraph to that definition, and it says: "The church is that institution which one affords proof of its utility, is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of Spiritual Ideas, and the demonstration of Divine Science, thereby casting out devils or error and healing the sick." You see, there are seven stages. If you think of it as an institution, you can start from there, but you see, it will not fulfill its function, unless it's fulfilling all seven of these aspects of its nature. Now, if it is an institution which affords proof of its utility, this is definitely done in Mind-Consciousness as Mind. It's found elevating the race; that's a Spiritual experience... rousing the dormant understanding is developing your Spiritual Sense-this would be Soul. Rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of Spiritual Ideas; this is Principle. And the demonstration of Divine Science, which is Life, thereby casting out devils or error, which is Truth, and healing the sick which is Love. You have fulfilled the Whole thing. So when you're writing seven letters to seven churches, and you understand that, you will see that these churches that are named: to the church in Ephesus write... to the church in Smyrna write... to the church in Pergamos write... to the church in Thyatira write... to the church in Sardis write... Philadelphia write... Laodicea... It's wonderful, because as you read it, these letters to the churches tell you what the one whose writing them sees as wrong with their actions, with the way they do. They find a certain erroneous concept, and then there's a cure for it; there's a gift if you overcome. Every time, there is a gift if you overcome. So, let's take the first one: we're in Chapter 2:1-5: (Verses 1-3) "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write: These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured , and hast not fainted." That wonderful, I've seen all you've been doing, like a great bookkeeper, I've seen you doing all these good things, " Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works;" this is the letter to Ephesus. The repentance is done in Mind. "He that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches: to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." (Verse 7) That's the first one. See the gift is the Tree of Life. Now, the second one. (Verse 8-11) "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer; behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days; be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." So you see what that indicates is... what it says is... the faith... and the gift is salvation. "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." Now, did we cover, in the meeting at Trinity Center, did we cover this thing of the first and the second death? Because we are already... when Infinite Consciousness dies to its totality and thinks of itself as someone, the first death has already happened. So upon the one that overcometh, the second death or the dying out of this has no power. (Verse 12-16) "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan's seat is; and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." Well, I would say that that all indicates idols; you've been worshipping Baal, you've been doing thus and so. This is a false, let us say it is a material sense of religion, this worship of idols, the falling down to graven images and all of that. What's going to correct that but a Spiritual Sense, and Spiritual Sense is Consciousness as Soul. So when it says here's the gift: "To him the overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Verse 17) This is the way Spiritual Sense always does. It's a transformation of your other viewpoint; always a transformation of your previous viewpoint. What is the new name? "I." His name is I. The Whole Thing. As Jacob is renamed Israel, the Whole Mind of Man, not just one of the faculties, every one is the Whole One. The Whole Is contained in the evidence. If clay is shaped as those three monkeys, all of the clay is in all of the monkeys. Everything the clay has is there in the shape it's in. So the new name is when it wakes to see itSelf AS Total. Alright, that was one in Pergamus. (Verse 18-20) "And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I now thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols." Or in other words, seduction; this is all an illustration of how you in looking at a dramatized version, you find a state that would define the whole thing, it's a dramatized version of seduction. So, when you are seduced away from the basic Principle; that's why I believe this one to be Principle. So what is the gift? (Verse 26) "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; And he shall rule with a rod and iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers; even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star." I understand the "morning star" to be the Principle that guides you; the Principle that directs, that's the gift-the outcome of all this. The next one is in Chapter 3:1-3; this is Sardis. (Verses 1-2) "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God (the same One talking), and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God." See, every bit of that is defining the very opposite of Life. So you know the One it's talking is Life-allowing anything to die. So here is the gift: (Verse 5) "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white railment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels." In other words, your Life is always redeemed, is always saved. (Verse 7-12) "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it; for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word and has not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God; and I will write upon him my new name." So that is so self explanatory as Truth, you don't need to say a word. The state is weakness; it speaks of, anywhere from Verse 7-11, it speaks of he that openeth and shutteth the door, no man can shutteth; "thou hast a little strength," it is a weakness, it is inadequate to the task. But he that overcometh, I will give the thing which cures weakness is the conviction of the Reality of Truth, the Truth. Tirza: Freedom, could that be called vacillation? In and out of the sheepfold? Freedom: Sure. Why not? It's just as true because the failure to adhere to the strict Truth of it; it can be sometimes seen, sometimes done, sometimes not done. Vacillation is a good definition of it. Tirza: That's a state though, it's not a condition of Consciousness. Freedom: Right, don't think for a second that any of these little states that I give are the only possible ones; there is an infinite array of conceivable states, the alphabet is limitless. So then, (Verse14-16) "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth." That's indifference. Neither hot nor cold, just plain indifferent. The cure of that is Love; Consciousness as Love, because here's the gift: (Verse 19-21) "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." In the throne, right enthroned is the symbol of rulership, so when you fulfill all seven of them and culminate it in Love; that's like on the seventh day of creation, there was no work to be done, that was a revelation. And incidently, in Science and Heath , at the end of that Chapter, the first Chapter of Genesis , where it says: "Is not this a revelation instead of a creation?" That's what it always is. It's an awakening, going through seven successive stages of Self-Cognition. O.K. We have the seven letters to the seven churches. Any comments? (Inaudible question) You find it in the first "Key to the Scriptures" that is the last part of Science and Health , there is a... what did they used to call me, they used to call me an "exegy," because I took everything from the Bible and made an exegesis of it. So there is an exegesis of the Book of Genesis and an exegesis of the Book called the Apocalypse, which the Revelation , and understanding that if you understand the blueprint that is given in Genesis , and you understand the fulfillment as given in Revelation that's a key to the Scriptures which I sort of tried to telescope in Passkey and make it something that anybody that has the comprehension of the relationship between Cause and effect can take this book and read Scripture from one end to the other, and not be tangle up with the inconguity of it all, if you're reading it as literal history. That's when you stumble and fall is when you read this thing as literal history, but read it as Revelation, you have the blueprint in Genesis , you have the fulfillment of it in Revelation . "I Am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end," then I must, of necessity, be all that has appeared to go in between. Because I said I want these meetings to be of utmost usefulness, it won't be worth anybody's time and investment to come here unless it is really useable to you. So I'd rather take the rest of our time in exorcising these demons, that I call the illegitimate offspring of the Root. Tirza: Are we going to kill those children? Freedom: I love that place about Jezebel when she says, "and so will I do to you if tomorrow about this time I have not," I love that. Tirza: Look out! Freedom: It always reminds me of the movie "Jezebel" where Bette Davis played a character named Julie and her aunt who was so discouraged by this character who was a niece of hers. She said, "I was thinking of a woman named "Jezebel." Ah, that was wonderful. So, let's take up some of these things that are concerns to you, and reduce those concerns, whatever they appear to be, reduce them to a conceivable state and in that way, shoot them dead. Don't be reluctant to air them; you are among the best of friends. Bernard: Would you recommend in treatment going through all seven of the Aspects? Freedom: I would indeed, because you don't want to come out so lopsided in your conclusions. I knew somebody... she knew God as Mind, period. Any reference to God was a reference to Mind, until finally, since she wasn'g getting any results from her efforts to do the Work, she sought out the help of a practitioner who said to her, "Well, you're such an intellectual, you're so intellectually developed that I feel as if really you should be on the other side of the desk." But he said, "If I may offer one suggestion, you realize there are six other useful definitions of God." And that's why, if you read in Science and Health on page 465, in answer to the question "What is God?" She says, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." The next question is: "Are these terms synonymous?" Her answer is: "They are. They refer to one absolute God. They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and wholeness of Deity. The attributes of God are justice, mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so." So then, as Bernard just asked, "In treatment would I recommend that you take whatever Feature of your Being you find to be the exact Counterfact of the dramatized state you have discovered in analyzing the portrayal, if you take that Feature, it is very helpful and really very necessary to realize that You Are the Mind that Knows this to Be True; You are the Spirit that constitutes its Substance; You are the Soul that embodies its variety; You are the Principle which underlies it; You are the Life that animates it; You are the Truth which confirms it; You are the Love which fulfills it. You really have the see that this is not something you are appealing to; if there is any appeal at all, it is to the deepnesses of Your Being, and unless you find yourSelf Being All of Those... someone asked yesterday where would you find that? Would you find that under Soul? Would you find that under Truth? Well, the fact is, that anyOne... take the term "injustice," it's a conceivable state. Well, where do you find "justice?" It doesn't mean that just because in a page twenty five years ago, I wrote that find "justice" as an attribute of Truth, that doesn't mean that you can't also find it in Love, that you can't find it as Consciousness Being Principle, it's just that somehow you more logically associate that attribute with that Element. But it is certainly not restricted to that. You can find "justice" as a Spiritual Feature, you can find that in any one of the Seven Elements, put probably, you would most likely look in Truth for it, because if you see a dramatized illustration of injustice, you would certainly want to know what is True about that. So you seek your own endless array of Features, and you find in your Element called Truth a very direct expression of Justice. And to the degree that that is accepted as Yours, and you acknowledge It's Presence and You experience the feeling of Being It, to that very degree to you cleanse the perspective, and you find the maintenance of that Feature Is radically changing the dramatized version that you're watching, that's the Lotus. This is how it's always done. That's only a sample. So whatever troubles you, if you find a state that would be a good definition of it, then recognizing it as a state, you proved it to be helpless, it can't move itself, it can't do one thing, well, go then to Your Own Being and Find a Counterfact to that particular state and You will find a Feature that is Always there, but might just as well not have been anywhere if you were asleep to its Presence. But when you acknowledge its Presence, and may I say that's all it means in the Psalms, when it says, "Praise the Lord. Praise Him, Praise Him..." Well, the only praise Him is the acknowledgement that IT IS SO. That's praise. It's the acknowledgement that this Is Already So. _________________: (Question relating to whether there is a parallel to how a Christian Science Practitioner might do this and how we are seeing it now.) Freedom: Well, there is a parallel there if it's done... I can't guarantee that all practitioners work the same way. I'm not sure. Because they have different ways from me. They used to speak of this one that used to sit down, when somebody called for help, and put on the practitioner's pitch. I don't know why, but that seemed to be her way of ruling out any sense of person, and going directly to the problem and translating that, I suppose. But somebody said, "Oh, you're giving a treatment, you must never ever be doing anything. You must sit quietly and do this." Well, I can remember reading Talbot Mundy's I Say Sunrise when he said, "If you think that by selecting some hole where you can go and escape the world in order to meditate on the Truth, you're very likely to find when you get there, that you will be so nervous and distaught that you won't be contributing anything to your patient." It's true. I used to think that you had to sit down and blot out everything. Well, the fact is, you do have to blot out everything, but you don't necessarily do it by sitting down, by standing up, by lying down. You remember how Neville used to say in his books about lie flat down with your head on a level with your body, not on a pillow. Lie flat down with your head on a level with your body and then you will release yourself from this sense of being a person. I spoke to him about that later, probably five or six years later. He says, "Well, I never do it that way anymore." (Laughter) You can do it bolt upright, you can do it any way that makes sense to you, where you become disassociated with that picture that was just told to you by telephone or written to you, however the message came to you. You must... As I say, the way to do it: Look at the thing squarely in the face, don't be afraid to call it by a name (I don't mean the person's name, I mean call the condition by a name), and then, if you can find a state that describes that situation, you can surely, by process of opposites find in you array of Attributes one that is just the opposite of that, then you can see that when it appeared as that awful condition, it was merely just the absence of the functioning Feature of Your Being. And when you Consciously acknowledge It's perpetual functioning, that acknowledgement is cleansing the perspective, and you suddenly see that what you're looking at you're seeing differently. That brings to mind another line from Science and Health , where she says, "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible become visible." Or as one gains more correct views of Cause as effect, you change the view, and the multitudinous objects which before were invisible become visible. So, I don't know how all practitioners work, I'm sure, but it's a way that I recommend because you know that ultimately you must accept the responsibility for your acceptance of either what they told you or its opposite. And I know from experience that until I have acknowledged that the last link in that chain of reasoning rests with my acceptance, not a person, My acceptance, it's only then that I can turn the thing off. I then will have exchanged that for a functioning Feature of my Being; then I can drop the case. And that's when you get an affirmative answer. (Inaudible question) Freedom: Exactly. As Cause. That change of Identification is what changes the picture on the screen. It's just exactly like changing the slide in your projector. The light is still there, the motor is running, the screen is showing, but it will keep showing what it was showing unless you change the slide. _______________: So a different practitioner may have a different means in order to place themselves in that place of conviction where they are as One. That is how they... Freedom: Exactly. That's how it's done, but as you say... (inaudible continuing question) If I acknowledge that I have just heard this, the responsibility then is mine to change the Reality of what I have accepted, and if I see through that as a dramatized state, I've already proved the unreality of it, but the work is only half done until I have found its opposite number in me. I have to find the Reality of the dormant Feature that permitted its absence to appear as that scene. Great! This is what I love! _____________: Do they believe that they are the Cause? Freedom: Do they believe that they are the Cause? Well, they may not at the moment, but when I understand Mind Is Indivisible, I've got to see that that state is Causeless. I've got to find it Sourceless, and I can't say "You made that, you thought that, because then I would say, 'You're stuck with it.'" Taking this completely out of the realm of they, me, them, us, we... making it as impersonal as you possibly can, that's when you make the state helpless, or in other words, you reduce it to its native helplessness, and you find active in Your Being these Feature that are eternally Present. That's how to do it. There's nobody else to do it except I . His Name is I, and if I do it thoroughly enough, the next report I get from that case is going to be a complete change of situation. I know it asks alot, but it is the only Way I Know. _____________: (Inaudible question about Features and states.) Freedom: Features and states are two completely different things. States are merely conceivable. They will never have any reality; whereas, all Features Are Real because They Are Way the Ultimate Reveals ItSelf. To go to that illustration of the modeling clay shaped as something; the thing it's shaped as is a state. The clay will be the Stuff with It's Features. And whatever makes clay recognizable as modeling clay would be its texture, its malleability, its durability, whatever. Those are features that make modeling clay recognizable as modeling clay. If clay were Consciousness, let's say, and it goes to sleep to that, then it might mistake itself as the shape it's in. It might think that it was one of those three monkeys. First of all, there has to be that clear distinction between what Features are and what states claim to be. You have to recognize that states have no Identity. Features are Real. Features describe Consciousness; Elements also describe Consciousness because Consciousness is describing ItSelf in Its fullness. (Inaudible question) I think you're trying to find where to pin the responsibility. That's very desirable. The fact is it's ALL Consciousness doing it All. Consciousness describes ItSelf... Let's take that sentence again: "Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love... are these terms synonymous?" They are. "They are intended to express the Nature, Essence and Wholeness of Deity." There is another place where it says the attributes of this are intelligence, wisdom, and so on. What I call Features or attributes are also qualities or properties; it doesn't matter. Let's not get stuck on the words particularly. When I first started teaching this in San Francisco, when I understood them, I began speaking of them as the Elements of Consciousness, and then maybe fifteen years later, I heard someone tell me, "What do you mean when you say Elements? Those are Aspects." Fine. Can't we unfold? We should be unfolding, not just ossifying. (Inaudible question) There may be different means that different practitioners of this Work use to bring them to that Conviction; they may be different means that they use, but it doesn't matter, it's what they speak of in the Eastern cultures as a mantra, you have something that you say, and you say and you say, because by the saying of it, it lifts you. Just by the saying of it, it does lift you, but by the acknowledgment of what it means, it lifts you, and you have to start somewhere. There are those that began when Christian Science was first established as a system of healing, there were those that whatever come up, anything that was wrong, they'd start "There is no Life, Truth, Intelligence, nor Substance in matter. All is Infinite Mind in its Infinite Manifestation, for God is All in All." It became a mantra. They were repeating it. Well, pretty soon it becomes tasteless and the Reality is gone. They think they will be heard so there is much speaking. Read that in the Gospel of Matthew about how you pray. And I love that, because it was just before the Lord's Prayer comes, it says, "In the manner, therefore, pray ye." It doesn't say, "In these words necessarily pray ye." But in this manner, by this meaning. And you remember in Passkey (end of tape) (Inaudible question) Freedom: Right. And if you do it that way you prevent yourself from the recipient of just the problem. You don't take on the problem. Jan: Since the words are not even separate from who You Are, and if you become the likeness of the words, and there is no separation between yourSelf and the words, and you have that whole content of meaning that's alive, then that lifts you. Freedom: That's what lifts you. Right. Because you see, the words and the meaning are not two separate things anymore than a song is separated from the music. If you learn... it's like being on the stage... you can learn all of your lines before you go to the first rehearsal and then when they block the set for you, and you find yourself at this certain place, you've forgotten your lines. But once you wait and learn your lines after the blocking has been done, it's just like learning a song; you learn the music and the words simultaneously. You learn it as one thing. I can remember preparing for a recital at the New England Conservatory of Music, and I was going to play this Mozart Rondo in D, and I got to a place and I went blank. I said to my teacher, "I know exactly what it is; it's right up on the top of the left hand page." She said, "Forget that. That won't help you in a concert. Don't memorize it on the page; memorize it on the keyboard. That's where you'll be when this happens." And I find that to be very true in theater. You memorize your lines, because this is what you are saying at a certain place where you are, at a certain position where you are. And if you learn it that way, it doesn't escape you when you're there. If you should go up, you know where you are, then the words come. You see it as one unit, one unity, one unified thing. Tirza: Isn't that what it says in John 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Words was with God and the Word was God." Freedom: Exactly. And the Word Is God. The Word is never something, as I left off in yesterday's meeting about "He that sent me hath not left me alone." Consciousness and Its Idea Is One. They are not separate. You cannot get an Idea out of its Consciousness. I hate using that terminology because "When you think of Ideas in Mind, avoid thinking of seeds in a watermelon." (The author of this statement is quoted by Freedom but was inaudible-Arthur Corey?) It's so easy to think of it as something stuffed inside something else. Consciousness, in the process of Self-Cognition, that's Idea. I have an Idea of What I Am, and that's what appears to me to be me. Vern: How do you find a stance between two apparently opposing platitudes? On the one hand, we have the saying, "God helps those who help themselves." On the other hand, we have, "Let go and let God." Freedom: That is why I wrote this Chapter in the new book, which I must make clear to somebody who asked about this, "Is this just a reprint of an old book?" I said, "No. Three chapters of this were once printed in booklets, and the intention was to get them into a more permanent form. So, I wrote four new things that have not been written before to make Seven Salient Subjects." I got off my track. Oh, yes, in the chapter called "Mind Over Chatter," I know it was the subject of a lecture I gave in San Francisco, but I had no notes on it, and I had no idea in the world what I said. So I wrote out what was current with me on that Idea of Mind over chatter. Because there is so much in the way of repeated platitudes used as 