I Am the True Vine

We'll find tonight very practical and yet profoundly spiritual. But the emphasis tonight is on the practical side of this wonderful, wonderful law of ours. I am the true vine. My Father is the vine breath. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away. Every branch of mine that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. These are the words put into the mouth of the character called Jesus Christ. In the same gospel the gospel of John he makes the statement, I and my father are one, so if the father does the pruning, it is self- pruning. This eternal vine is the human imagination. I can tell anyone one the shock that comes to man when he who was taught to believe in an external Jesus Christ, in an external Father, discovers that his own wonderful human imagination is Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ and his Father are one.

When you you find Jesus Christ, may I tell you, you will find him, a wild, wild tree. As the poet said, behold this vine, I found it a wild tree, whose wanton strength had swollen into to irregular twigs, but I pruned the plant, and it grew temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted, as you see, into these clean, full clusters to repay the hand that wisely wounded it. When you find that your own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. And you discover what you've been doing with the Lord Jesus Christ all through your life. You stand, you are shocked beyond measure. I can't tell anyone the shock until they themselves experience it.

Have I been doing this to him? Yes, here he waits on me like a slave, and he waits on me as indifferently and as swiftly when the will in me is evil as when it is good, and he does it all for purposes of his own. He's actually lifting me to the consciousness of himself. That this Lord Jesus Christ, the only Lord Jesus Christ, is crucified on man and is buried in man. He is not a man, he is the man, the universal man, buried in humanity. Humanity is God incarnate. Then he rises in the individual man. And the man in whom he rises becomes the man. The universal man. For in the end there is Jesus only.

thing. Now because my own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ and by him all things were made, and without him was not one thing made that was made. I now have to take myself in hand. I am upon the vine. I am the true vine. and my father is the vine dresser, and I and my father are one, so I have to start now the pruning process. It is not when I want something big in life that I operate this law. Every second of time I do it, it is not one to week on Sunday, when I go to church, not once a day, when I retire at night. I am constantly observing what I am imagining.

All the things that I am imagining are what have come to pass. They are not receding into the past; they are advancing into the future to confront them. I may not recognize my harvest when I see it, but nothing comes into my world but what it was first imagined. Everything in my world. The little insignificant thing, reading the paper, and you react. You meet a friend, and you react. And all these little things are imaginal acts and they're coming into our world.

Let me share with you a story told me this week. She's here tonight. He said, we got a call last Sunday, my mother and I, from my brother in Toronto. He's a young lad. I dare say 19. And he went off to Toronto to avoid the draft. And she said, I know I didn't do it. I told him that was your decision. We talked for about 20 minutes over the phone. my mother and I after we hung up my mother said I did it I know the very second I did that for I say to myself your brother will do this because it's exactly what his father would have done but the father isn't here anymore the father has departed this world she said I felt it and I knew it and I dropped it let it go but she said in her letter to me he reconsidered, he only externalized my mother's imaginal act: he did it, then he reconsidered and returned, and tonight he goes into the office he had to do exactly what was done because we are one.

All things by a law divine in one another be mingled. When the poet Yeats said, having seen these things happen in his life that I will never be certain that it was not some woman treading in the winepress that started that subtle change in men's minds or that it was not some shepherd boy lighting up his eyes for a moment before it ran upon its way. Who is treading in the winepress? Well, the mother discovered he did it. She recalled the very moment she did it, but then she dropped it.

Now there is your secret. She let it go. A seed must be let go. I can hold it in my hand. A seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive. You want something big in this world and you're holding on to it, it hasn't dropped. It's the little things that you care about. All the little insignificant things. So you feel them intensely and you drop them because the other things are so big and so important. The other things you're holding on to, you haven't dropped them at all. you haven't dropped all the little things, your little annoyances in the life.

So you read the morning's paper and someone you do not know, and you react. Then you go on to another scene and another scene. And some are pleasant, some are horrible, but you are reacting. But the day comes and what you consider more important things. So you take the big things, the important things of the day, but you don't let them go. own. You want to be happily married. You want more money. You want a home of your own. You want it completely free of all debt. But you hold on to them. You don't let them go as you do the little things. And the little things, because you drop them like seeds into the ground, they're popping up all day long confronting you. But you don't recognize your own harvest. it.

May I tell you a story when I was a boy in the little island of Barbados. We were a very large family, nine boys and a girl, my father, my mother, and my grandmother on my mother's side. And we had the usual thing you have in the island. It's a tropical island. We had ducks, we had chickens, we had sheep and goats and cows for the milk. Because there was no dairy when I was a boy. You either had a cow or you had no milk. Or you had a goat or you had no milk. Unless a neighbor had more than they could use, and then they gave it to you. But we had a few cows, and we had the usual things like a farm.

When my mother decided that, say, two weeks from today, we were going to have duck for dinner, she would say to one of the boys, any one of them, would say to me, never take a few ducks and put them away. Well, I knew exactly what she meant. We would take three ducks for our side family, maybe four ducks, because there are not so much on the ducks. But you would take the ducks, and you put them into a pane by themselves away from the other ducks because the normal run of duck beef head fish fish was plentiful and cheap in fact when I was a boy you bought fish all a penny there was no refrigeration so the boats came in later around Sun sundown what they didn't sell on the beach would rock we had no refrigeration so you could take a bucket down and buy all the fish you wanted for a penny or that you use the next day for bait.

So we fed the duck the fish and the intrusive fish, anything out of the fish. Well they thrived on it, they got good and fat, but they tasted just like fish. They fed on fish and they became fish. Mother said we want duck. All right, so you took four ducks and and you put them away. And then for the next two weeks, or in ten days, they will completely change the odor of that flesh. If you were consistent in the change of feed, and you put the sour milk, corn, anything you had, but not fish. You couldn't just give them this during the day, and because fish was cheap, give them a little fish at night.

You couldn't mix up the diet. So for the next two weeks you gave them that changed diet— may I tell you if you didn't, what happened? We couldn't have duck for dinner if I made the mistake when mother said to me I want duck in two weeks and I didn't obey her order then I finally discovered my mistake and did it say a week later but a week was not enough so I didn't want to confess my mistake, but the oven confessed it. And so the heads were chopped off and the ducks were all plucked and prepared, and then all of a sudden, all over the neighborhood they called us to having fish for Sunday.

You couldn't eat it. Just to use it. With the duck, it looks like a duck. It is a duck, but it tasted like a fish. For it fed upon fish for the two weeks. Or rather at least one week. It took ten days to convert the flesh from the fish where it normally fell because it was cheap into the wheat or the corn or the milk. That was a lesson I learned. If I am going to feed the vine of eternity and I am the eternal vine, I can only grow what I feed myself mentally. What am I feeding myself morning, noon and night. I cannot change it during the day and say a little fish because it's cheap.

What's going to happen here? This is nothing and all of a sudden I read some stupid little thing and I react. That's my fish and I want a bird that really is milk fed. I have got to actually put myself on a diet, a mental diet and stick to it and then I will bear the fruit of of that changed diet. It's entirely up to us. All these little things happen in our life to teach us a lesson. Who would have thought when I was a boy, when mother said to me, you have ducks in two weeks, and you put the ducks away, that I would have learned the most fantastic lesson. I didn't learn it then.

Many a time I made the mistake. And so we had to settle for something else we had in the house. But no matter what it was, we couldn't have ducks. You couldn't eat it. You looked at it and nothing is more displeasing than to look at a duck and eat fish. And I love fish. But let it look like a fish. But don't look like a duck and I'm eating fish. Well, that is man's being. I am the vine of eternity. And you say within yourself, I am the true vine. And my Father is the vine vessel. self. Every branch in me that bears no fruit, he takes away. Every branch that does bear fruit, then he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.

Now, if I am that vine, and my imagination is is the eternal vine of the world, then I should do something about it. And morning, noon, and night, every moment of time, even in my dream, I prune it. Even in the dream, you get to the point, you simply start pruning, and you prune and prune. This is not bearing properly, or this is a dead wood, and you take it away. I want no part of it. But not wait until the end of the week, or the end of the month when something is pressing, so now this I'm going to do. It doesn't work that way. You do it morning, noon, and night. That's what I'm talking about.

All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow. All things exist in the human imagination. for the human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord Jesus Christ and God are one. I and my Father are one. So God is Jesus. And Jesus is your own wonderful human imagination. He is actually buried in you. And when he rises in you, which he will one day, you are the man not a man you are the universal man for in the end there is Jesus only when the transfiguration takes place they disappear leaving Jesus only where is Moses? where is Elijah?

were they rubbed out? no, they were fulfilled I came not to abolish the law of Moses and the prophets I came to fulfill them having fulfilled them for he reinterprets the law he reinterprets the prophecies based upon his own experience of Scripture therefore having fulfilled the law Moses disappears having fulfilled the prophecy Elijah disappears and when their eyes are open it is Jesus only that's your destiny you will be the Jesus of scripture and the Jesus of scripture is the Lord God Jehovah in the end there will be Jesus only so we start now this very moment watching the vine and we are the vine my own wonderful human imagination that is the vine the eternal vine and these things that happened to us seemingly by accident when you are children and not observers, all of a sudden the mind goes back and you relate it to something that is taking place now I didn't know then what I was doing I got a spanking for it because the family of 13 couldn't eat the next time Lawrence got his spanking He forgot it too.

But we learned our lesson. How many of us learned it, I do not know. I learned it. I am still learning. Because every day you read the paper. I stupidly get the morning paper. And some things are funny, most are not. One little funny thing is worth the entire paper. Like, yes, the morning paper. paper. ¶The story told of Blair House in Washington. How we came to buy and make Blair House for the guests of our president. Well, to me, that was worth the morning's paper. It happens that Mr. Churchill, visiting the White House, there was no Blair House then. He was the cause of Blair House because he slept in the White House. And then at 7 .30 the next morning, here he comes with his nightgown, a a big cigar in one hand and a huge tumbler of cognac in the other, going towards President Roosevelt's bedroom.

And Ellen Roosevelt said, oh, no, you don't. You kept him up until 3 .30 this morning. Go on back to your bed. So he did. He turned around with his cigar and his cognac, and he went back to bed. And then she said to her husband, you've got to buy or get the country to buy Blair House and make it a guest house. so they cannot come here in the White House and disturb you. Here this man kept you up until 3 .30 in the morning and here at 7 .30 he's up with a cigar and a bottle of a cognac and he's coming to your bedroom. That's why we have Blair House as a guest house.

Well, to me that was so funny because it struck me funnily. When they're all out, you must stop smoking, you must stop drinking and the man died at 90. All this nonsense. ¶One man has a little phobia and he wants to superimpose it on everyone in the world. Like Mr. Nader today, he wants to stop smoking in all public conveniences. A person gets on a plane and they're nervous. A cigarette is going to relax them. He wants to stop it all and make her nervous something and cause an accident. So she can't smoke because he thinks she should not smoke. Well, we had that years ago with Carrie Nation. she went around breaking up all the mirrors in these things and what a mess we had for something like 20 years with prohibition she simply filled the country with a bunch of rascals but she thought she was doing God's work there are always things that are doing God's work well I'm telling you what God's work is believe in him whom he has sent and I am telling you he strengthened thing.

And your own wonderful human imagination is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other Lord Jesus Christ. ¶But when I say imagination, you may think, well, no. Is that some impersonal force? No, that is man. You're a man, aren't you? Your real being is all imagination. As Blake told us so clearly in his Auguries of Innocence, concerning man. He said, man appears, or God appears, and God is light to those poor souls who dwell in night. But does the human form display to those who dwell in realms of day? It's man. When I stood in the presence of infinite love, it was man. it always is man trying to be more than man you become less it's stupid it's all man God is man and you are man so I tell you don't try to think you're going to find anything outside of man that is God God is man and so when you actually hear the word imagination is God think of man and when you say well my imagination nation death.

The being that you really are. And you're a man, aren't you? Well, that's man. It's a person. And he actually dwells in you. Buried in you. One day, he who's your slave now, will rise in you. And when he rises in you, you are the one in whom he rose. You are the very one who rose within you. and he is not then a man he is the man the universal man and you are the universal man containing all men within you and then one after one will rise and one after one will become the man and in the end it's only God and you are God so tonight take it seriously don't think once a week is enough or once a month is enough the Christian world and the Jewish world they celebrate it a few times a year Easter, Christmas and so on you can count them the churches are bulging on Good Friday they're bulging on Easter bulging on Christmas and then they're emptying all the way through and then the same happens with the Jewish faith Passover and all the great events there are only a few in the course of a year this calls for one every second of time observing what you are imagining for that is God in action God imagining is creating and God is your own wonderful human imagination so you imagining you are creating So all the little things are going to confront you.

The big things will follow. You get into the habit of thinking only that which is of value. You simply prune the tree. Is this of value to me? No it isn't, but prune the tree. It doesn't, it isn't worth my time, it isn't worth my energy. So I keep on pruning the tree morning, noon and night as I live. And then it becomes a habit. it. And when it becomes a habit, it is easy to keep that tree instead of working on it in some hard manner a few times a year to bring that huge bush down. I keep it going morning, noon, and night, and then it keeps on growing lovely things in my world.

Lovely friends, security, all the necessary income, everything in the world. That's how it works. and then will come that glorious moment all that I'm telling you now will prove itself in performance. You will have the experience as recorded in scripture of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will know who you are. That actually everything said of him in scripture you are going to experience in a first person singular present tense exprim and you'll know you are the Lord Jesus Christ. And there never was another. He is buried in you and he has to rise in you. This is his only sepulcher. There is no other sepulcher. So you're reading in the paper the death pung, the original sepulcher, something built 400 AD, not BC, or not in the first century, 400 AD.

And do you know that they will have thousands who will go to look at it, that this is where he was buried? And they do not know he's buried in the one who is observing it, and not the thing observed. He never was buried there. There was no such thing as the Lord Jesus Christ buried on any part of this earth. But he is buried in every child that is born of woman. That's where he's buried. and that's where he's going to rise and when he rises in the individual that individual will know he is the man that great being who is God himself I am telling you what I know if the world rose in opposition it would make no difference to me whatsoever none whatsoever I am telling you what I know from experience in.

He's buried right here. Everyone who is seated here. And in everyone who is here, he will rise. He cannot fail. He cannot fail to rise. He has to rise. And when he rises, no change of identity, but you know from the imagery that surrounds you, who you are. And you are the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you take off this garment for the last time, after the series of events, you come into your glory. Infinite glory. The glory that was yours before that the world was. Because you are an individual. And may I tell you, you are uncreated. You were never created. You are God. No such thing as being created. You actually are God himself.

Without father, without mother. you are that God and you and I are one and there is nothing in this world but God so I have been sent to tell you one thing only the story of Christ, the story of Christ is your own plan of the redemption of self, for you came down into this world of death, you came down into this world of generation and death, and you planned the way of your own return through your own resurrection, and you will resurrect, and I'll be waiting for you, waiting eagerly for we are love itself. When we speak of God, is love, I'm not kidding. God is love. And God is man. And get it?

Infinite love. Not some impersonal love. You can't do that. It must be personal. God is a person. And God is love. Infinite love. Now tonight I ask you to start, if you haven't started, to start watching every moment of time what you are imagining. And then if you're not imagining what you ought to imagine, just stop it. But some people are in the habit of giving one more, well, five minutes to just feel the thrill of hitting him. We'll do that. I know that from experience. A man in New York City in the Second World War. He hated President Roosevelt. I said to him, do you know the man? He said, no. There's no reason for the hate.

He happened to be born of German parents. They were born in Germany, but what does that have to do? We have millions of Germans in our country who are 100 % American. I was born in Barbados, a British stock, but I'm an American. American. Anything that hurts this country, it hurts me. I am not on the outside. I am here in America and anything that hurts this country is hurting me. And here he is telling me because his parent from Germany, he hated Roosevelt because Roosevelt got us into the war against Germany. I told him, you know Germany attacked us? They declare war. But But he couldn't see that. Every morning he would get before the mirror and he would shave himself and he would have a little conversation with Mr.

Roosevelt in the mirror. And he told him off. He told him everything under the sun that was unpleasant. I said, you're bringing it on yourself. And I tell you, Mr. Roosevelt is not going to be hurt by you. Because I too know this principle. I'm teaching it to you. He won't be hurt by you. Because whatever you could do, I'll modify it, and you're only going to hurt yourself. Well, he did everything collapsed in his world, everything, and here was a man, a single fellow, his parents were well off, there was no reasoning in the world for it, but there's peculiar something because his parents came from Germany. I said, my lord, we all came from other parts of the world.

This tabless land of ours. We are a salad bowl. Ethnic groups, all of us, ethnic groups. ¶We are not really what the world thinks we are. That we are a melting pot. No melting pot here. So you are a Germanic background and you're proud of it. Perfectly all right. But I am British background, I'm proud of it. Perfectly all right, but I'm in America. And this is like a salad bowl where each simply contains within itself its own little contribution to the world in which we live. It's a far better thing than a melting pot. There's no melting pot here at all. They are Japanese, proud of it. My Japanese gardener today, he said, did you see Sunday's paper?

I said, yes. Did you see the picture of my son? He said, no. I don't even know your name. I know your name is Henry. Well, he brought the paper. It was in the western section in the Brentwood western area. And here's a picture of his son, who was a doctor at UCLA, taking care of all these handicapped children and handicapped people, putting arms on them so they can use an artificial arm. Some were born without the arm, and some lost the arm. And he is doing all this work. And here is a Japanese lad, and he was so proud. Now, in the past, when I would say to him, you know, Henry, I like so -and -so Don, he would always act as though he couldn't understand English.

Does he understand English today when he's talking about his son? I could have been speaking to Churchill, and he, in the past, he never understood English. Well, that's an ethnic group. Why bring it up and mix the whole thing up? We are all like a salad bowl. ¶When you have a salad, you put it in this, and you put it in that, and you put it in the other. each contributes to the salad and it's the most glorious thing I don't want to put it into a blender and blend the whole thing up that's not a salad to me let everyone contribute to this wonderful salad bowl that is America we are not what the world has been taught to believe a melting pot there's no melting pot it's simply a salad bowl and be proud of your background but don't take it from the land that is now your home you come into this land and make it your home bring with you all that you have and give it into that cellar bowl so I tell you this wonderful being that you are is Jesus Christ your true identity is Jesus Christ and that is your own wonderful human imagination and whether your your skin be as black as the ace of spades, or as white as snow, is the same vine.

Has nothing to do with the outer god. It's all to do with the inner you, and the inner you is your own wonderful human imagination, and there is only one Jesus Christ. So the Jesus Christ in you is the same Jesus Christ in me. so far he awoke in me completely awoke waiting only for the last little moment to take off this garment for the last time where can I go but within you I go within you on high for I was within you in the depths I now will return but on high waiting eagerly for everyone to come back for we are all one so I tell you I am the true vine and my father is the vine better every branch in me that bears no fruit he takes it away and every branch that bears fruit fruit, he prunes it, that it may bear over.

And because I and my Father are one, I am the one better. So I have to be observant as to what is not bearing and what is bearing. And what is bearing, I must prune it. I must bear more fruit. So my income is so and so, prune it bear more and so my way of life has shown itself prune it and it become greater and keep on pruning it. I don't judge these things as to the nature of the tree, but you prune it as you have the desire to prune it, and because the whole vast world is yourself for he said, you have no life unless you are rooted in me. When you hear the distress of the extended you, then you prove that barren area.

And in your own mind's eye, you feel that they are as they ought to be. And then drop it. The secret is dropping. Let me go. The last statement, or one of the last statements in the gospel. Do not hold on. Let me go. If you hold on to it, then you haven't dropped it and a seed must fall into the ground and die before it is made alive, so if I hold on to it and keep on holding on to it I haven't dropped it and it has to be dropped and left alone. Too can't forget every morning to see if it has roots. I must drop it, leave it alone, and then confront the harvest, and then like my friend's mother, who recognized the harvest when the sun called from Toronto.

I am avoiding the draft. He hadn't gone AWOL. Had he not returned he would have but he returned, went into the army to face the normal of being an American, for we're all part of it. I was drafted in 1942. I didn't volunteer. Volunteer. My son volunteered at the age of 17 in the Marine Corps, right after Pearl Harbor. He was in Guadalcanal, and I had a little girl who was only a matter of months. She was born in June, and they drafted me in November. It was a little China child. I didn't oppose it. All right, that's part of the country, and we are at war. I didn't know what the devil I could give.

Because I'm not given that way. But maybe they could use me to serve prayers for them or something. And so, I allowed myself to be drafted. I didn't oppose it. I didn't know where they would put me. And I have never been able to drive a car in my life. Never. It's far better if I had an occasion to do it. Living in New York City, I took taxis or subways or buses. And since I've been out here I take buses or I drive with friends, and where do you think they put me? In the armored division, and when the whole crowd of us, the whole bunch, thousands of us, and I asked anyone who could not drive a car to raise their hand, two hands went up.

One was mine. Here I am in the armored division, the 11th armored division with all these tanks and all these trucks and all these things. I've never driven anything in my life. So they put me in the Armored Division. That's the infantry. That's what we do. Snafu, really snafu when it comes to the Army. And then when I said, so what do you do for a living? He said, I lecture. On what? ¶Well, I lecture on the Word of God. They all started to laugh. put him in the medics and teach him how to drive a car. Well, they couldn't teach him how to drive a car. One sergeant gave me two lessons and he said he'll give him no more because he'll kill me.

So they gave me this little tiny thing and I went around that place. He said, what to do? And I couldn't get my foot off the pressure. I'm going to go around on two wheels. And he said, I've done. I've done all I can do. I'll give him no more lessons. So they gave me no more lessons. And then they finally resolved the whole thing. And I was used to talk to the boys on first aid. I know nothing of first aid. At least I could teach. ¶Here is a book. Take the book, memorize it, and then we'll bring a company in one after the other. And you teach the men on first aid. Well, I could memorize the book quickly.

So they were coming and I talked to them on first faith. He knew nothing of first faith. But at least if the book was correct, I could tell him what the book said. But I'm telling you what the book says. That I am the true vine. And my father is the vine and I and my father are one. And the eternal vine is the human imagination. And all things come out of the human imagination. ¶There is nothing in this world that is created, but it's created by the human imagination. Everything in the world. You may say, did the earthquake come out? Yes, it did. Everything comes out of the human imagination. ¶These are only pressures built up by man's own wonderful human imagination.

And they must be released. To build a pressure and it's released. Because not a thing is creating anything in this world but God. And God is your own wonderful human imagination. But do not treat it as something you must simply once a week observe. Or once a day. Or once a year. ¶Every moment of time you observe what you are imagining. Because what you are imagining you are creating. Morning, noon and night. and prune your tree all through the day and it will become a habit and you'll prune it all through the night. And then in the not distant future he who is the eternal vine will awaken and you are he. And you'll know he is God the Father because God's only begotten Son will stand before you and call you Father.

And you will know he is your Son and he will know you are his father. And there will be no uncertainty as to this relationship. And everything said in scripture concerning him you are going to experience. ¶Now let us go into the silence. Thank you.