The Law and the Promise

Chapter 14

THE CREATIVE MOMENT

"The natural man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." — 1Cor. 2:14.

"There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find, Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find This Moment & it multiply, & when it once is found It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed." — Blake

Whenever we imagine things as they ought to be, rather than as they seem to be, is "The Moment". For in that moment, the spiritual man's work is done and all the great events of time start forth to mould a world in harmony with that moment's altered pattern.

Satan, Blake writes, is a "Reactor". He never acts; he only reacts. And if our attitude to the happenings of the day is "reactionary", are we not playing Satan's part?

Man is only reacting in his natural or Satan state; he never acts or creates, he only re-acts or re-creates. One real creative moment, one real feeling of the wish fulfilled, is worth more than the whole natural life of re-action. In such a moment, God's work is done.

Once more, we may say with Blake,
"God only Acts and Is, in existing beings or Men." ["The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", 1793]

There is an imaginal past and an imaginal future. If, by reacting, the past is re-created into the present — so — by acting out our dreams of fancy can the future be brought into the present.

"I feel now the future in the instant." [— William Shakespeare, "Macbeth"]

The spiritual man Acts: for him, anything that he wants to do, he can do and do at once — in his imagination — and his motto is always, "The Moment is Now".

"Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." — 2Cor. 6:2

Nothing stands between man and the fulfillment of his dream but facts.

And facts are the creations of imagining. If man changes his imagining, he will change the facts.

This story tells of a young woman who found the Moment and, by acting out her dream of fancy, brought the future into the instant, not realizing what she had done until the final scene.

"The incident related below must appear to be coincidence to those never exposed to your teaching — but I know I observed an imaginative act take solid form in, perhaps, four minutes. I believe you will be interested in reading this account, written down, exactly as it happened, a few minutes after the actual occurrence, yesterday morning.

"I was driving my car east on Sunset Boulevard, in the center lane of traffic, braking slowly to stop for a red signal at a three-way intersection, when my attention was caught by the sight of an elderly lady, dressed all in grey, running across the street in front of my car. Her arm was raised, signaling to the driver of a bus which was beginning to pull away from the curb. She was obviously attempting to cross in front of the bus to delay it. The driver slowed his vehicle and I thought would allow her to enter. Instead, as she jumped on to the curb, the bus pulled away leaving her standing just in the act of lowering her arm. She turned and walked swiftly toward a nearby phone booth.

"As my signal changed to green and I put my car in motion, I wished I had been behind the bus and had been able to offer her a ride. Her extreme agitation was obvious even from the distance I was away from her. My wish instantly fulfilled itself in a mental drama, and as I drove away, the fancy played itself out in the following scene... "

...I opened the car door and a lady dressed in grey stepped in, smilingly relieved and thanking me profusely. She was out of breath from running and said, 'I only have a few blocks to go. I'm meeting friends and I was so afraid they would leave without me when I missed my bus.' I left my imaginary lady out a few blocks farther on and she was delighted to observe her friends still waiting for her. She thanked me again and walked away..."

"The entire mental scene was spanned in the time it takes to drive one block at a normal rate of speed.

The fancy satisfied my feelings regarding the 'real' incident, and I immediately forgot it. Four blocks farther, I was still in the center lane and again had to stop for a red signal. My attention at this time was turned inward on something I have now forgotten, when suddenly someone tapped on the closed window of my car and I looked up to see a lovely-appearing elderly lady with grey hair, dressed all in grey. Smiling, she asked if she might ride a few blocks with me as she had missed her bus. She was out of breath, as though from running, and I was so stunned by her sudden appearance in the middle of a busy street at my window that for a moment I could only react physically, and without answering, leaned over and opened my car door. She got in and said, 'It's so annoying to rush so and then miss a bus. I wouldn't have imposed on you like this, but I'm supposed to meet some friends a few blocks down the street and if I had to walk now, I would miss them.' Six blocks farther on, she exclaimed, 'Oh, good! They're still waiting for me.' I let her out and she thanked me again and walked away. "I'm afraid I drove to my own destination by automatic reflex, for I had fully recognized that I had just observed a waking dream take form in physical action. I recognized what was happening while it was happening. As soon as I could, I wrote down each part of the incident and found a startling consistency between the 'waking dream' and the subsequent 'reality'. Both women were elderly, gracious in manner, dressed all in grey, and out of breath from hurrying to catch a bus and missing it. Both wished to meet friends (who for some reason could not wait for them much longer) and both left my car within the space of a few blocks after successfully completing their contact with their friends.

"I am amazed, confounded and elated! If there is no such thing as coincidence or accident — then I witnessed imagination become 'reality' almost instantaneously." ...J.R.B.

"There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find. Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find This Moment & it multiply, & when it once is found It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed."

"From the first time I read your 'Search', I have longed to experience a vision. Since you have told us of the 'Promise', this desire has been intensified. I want to tell you of my vision which was a glorious answer to my prayer; but I am sure I would not have had this experience were it not for something that occurred two weeks ago.

"It was necessary for me to park my car some distance from the University Building where I was scheduled to conduct my class. As I left my car, I was conscious of the stillness about me. The street was completely deserted; no one was in sight.

"Suddenly, I heard a most frightful cursing voice. I looked toward the sound and saw a man brandishing a cane, yelling, between vile words, 'I'll kill you. I'll kill you'. I continued on as he approached me, for at that moment I thought 'Now I can test what I have professed to believe; if I do believe we are one, The Father, this derelict and I, no harm can come to me. At that moment I had no fear. Instead of seeing a man coming toward me, I felt a light. He stopped yelling, dropped his cane and walked quietly as we passed with less than a foot between us.

"Having tested my faith at that moment, everything about me had seemed more alive than before — flowers brighter and trees greener. I have had a sense of peace and the 'oneness' of life I had not known before.

"Last Friday, I drove to our country home — nothing was unusual about the day or evening. I worked on a manuscript and, not being tired, did not try to fall off to sleep until around two the following morning. Then I turned off the light and drifted into that floating sensation, not asleep but drowsy, as I call it, half awake and half asleep.

"Often, while in this state — lovely, unknown faces float before me — but this morning the experience was different. A perfect face of a child came before me in profile — then it turned and smiled at me. It was glowing with light and seemed to fill my own head with light.

"I was aglow and excited and thought 'this must be the Christos'; but something within me, without sound, said, 'No, this is you'. I feel I will never be the same again and some day I may experience the 'Promise'." ...G.B.

Our dreams will all be realized from the time that we know that Imagining Creates Reality — and Act.

But Imagination seeks from us something much deeper and more fundamental than creating things: nothing less indeed than the recognition of its own oneness, with God; that what it does is, in reality, God Himself doing it in and through Man, who is All Imagination.

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