There are two kinds of killed. Anybody can kill the appearance of me. Nobody can take my Life away, not if Life is. In the Real world Life is. Nothing destroys Life. Appearances are appearances, nothing destroys Life. Leaning on other people for understanding is like leaning on doctors for healing. We can only benefit when they're right . . . . when they're gone or wrong we're out of luck. But if instead we spend a lifetime learning how to understand what we know, that knowing self is always with us, and when it's wrong we can change it till it works every time, almost. The reason I'm here is not to convince you, or convert you, or to make you into me. I have a hard enough time making Jerd into me. I'm nobody's leader but my own. I would frankly feel better if you stopped caring who I am and what I believe and why I'm different from you and everybody else. I owe you information, and an answer to your curiosity. I do not owe you a conversion to my thinking which may all be lies. I think that Life is expressed in Appearance the same way that numbers are expressed in space-time. Lets take the number eight for example.
We can print an eight in ink on paper, we can cast eight in bronze, we can chip eight in stone, arrange eight dandelions in a row, stack eight dodecahedrons carefully one on top of the other. We can express the idea eight endlessly. But wait, we can also burn the page, melt the bronze, turn stone to dust, blow dandelions to the wind, crush dedechedrons to a splintered mass. We can destroy the appearance of numbers in space-time. We can create appearances, we can destroy appearances. But before time began, and right this minute, and after time and space have washed away, the reality of the idea eight stands, indestructible by appearances. When the Big Bang has turned into the Big Crunch and all matter is crushed to a particle so small that it no longer exists, the idea eight floats serene, perfect and absolutely uncaring. So my body is no more the real me than a written number is the real number. I don't care whether you believe what I'm saying I care that you understand. The idea of any number is unique, there is no other idea like it in existence. The entire Principle of Numbers depends upon dear eight, and without eight the whole Principle would collapse. Don't think so? Let's say we've managed to destroy the number eight. What's four plus four? Six plus two? Ten minus two? An indefinite number of numbers, each number different from all the others, each as important to the Principle as the Principle is important to every one. The Principle needs every number! Real, indestructible, Life beyond appearances - yet any number can be expressed simultaneously in any of the infinite worlds-of-appearance that it wishes.
Once we're in space-time, we're free to believe that we exist alone and unconnected, we're free to say the Principle of Numbers is nonsense. The Principle doesn't notice space-time because space-time isn't. So the Principle doesn't hear anguished prayer or wicked curse, there's no such thing as sacrilege or heresy or blasphemy or impiety or irreverence or abomination. The Principle builds no temples, hires no missionaries, fights no wars. It is heedless, utterly unaware when symbols of its number are nailed to crosses, hacked to pieces by other symbols and burned to ash. It doesn't notice the games that matter so much to us. Try it now. Turn so that your back is to the Infinite Principle of Numbers, to the Immortal Reality of Numerical Being. So we can ignore the Principle, we can hate it, curse it, crusade against it, we can make fun of t. No wrath from heaven, nor the faintest frown on high. Why not, because it isn't listening BUT WE ARE! When we turn our back on the Principle of Numbers, what happens in our arithmetic? Nothing adds up. Answers come out different every time, business and science dissolve in tangles. Abandon Principle and it's not the Principle that suffers, it's us! But remember Principle, and that instant everything works again. No apology required, It couldn't hear one if we shouted. Nobody's on probation, nobody's punished, no scoldings from the Infinite One. Remembering brings sudden healing through all our sums, for even in the imaginary playgrounds of appearance, the Principle is real. Now lets say instead of the Principle of Numbers, the Principle of Life. Pure Life Pure Knowing is Pure Self. Let's say that each of us is a perfect expression of that Principle, that we exist beyond Time, that we are immortal, eternal, indestructible. So we're free to do anything we want except two things: we can't create reality and we can't destroy it. So before time and after, through every moment, Life is and We Are.
We can print an eight in ink on paper, we can cast eight in bronze, we can chip eight in stone, arrange eight dandelions in a row, stack eight dodecahedrons carefully one on top of the other. We can express the idea eight endlessly. But wait, we can also burn the page, melt the bronze, turn stone to dust, blow dandelions to the wind, crush dedechedrons to a splintered mass. We can destroy the appearance of numbers in space-time. We can create appearances, we can destroy appearances. But before time began, and right this minute, and after time and space have washed away, the reality of the idea eight stands, indestructible by appearances. When the Big Bang has turned into the Big Crunch and all matter is crushed to a particle so small that it no longer exists, the idea eight floats serene, perfect and absolutely uncaring. So my body is no more the real me than a written number is the real number. I don't care whether you believe what I'm saying I care that you understand. The idea of any number is unique, there is no other idea like it in existence. The entire Principle of Numbers depends upon dear eight, and without eight the whole Principle would collapse. Don't think so? Let's say we've managed to destroy the number eight. What's four plus four? Six plus two? Ten minus two? An indefinite number of numbers, each number different from all the others, each as important to the Principle as the Principle is important to every one. The Principle needs every number! Real, indestructible, Life beyond appearances - yet any number can be expressed simultaneously in any of the infinite worlds-of-appearance that it wishes.
Once we're in space-time, we're free to believe that we exist alone and unconnected, we're free to say the Principle of Numbers is nonsense. The Principle doesn't notice space-time because space-time isn't. So the Principle doesn't hear anguished prayer or wicked curse, there's no such thing as sacrilege or heresy or blasphemy or impiety or irreverence or abomination. The Principle builds no temples, hires no missionaries, fights no wars. It is heedless, utterly unaware when symbols of its number are nailed to crosses, hacked to pieces by other symbols and burned to ash. It doesn't notice the games that matter so much to us. Try it now. Turn so that your back is to the Infinite Principle of Numbers, to the Immortal Reality of Numerical Being. So we can ignore the Principle, we can hate it, curse it, crusade against it, we can make fun of t. No wrath from heaven, nor the faintest frown on high. Why not, because it isn't listening BUT WE ARE! When we turn our back on the Principle of Numbers, what happens in our arithmetic? Nothing adds up. Answers come out different every time, business and science dissolve in tangles. Abandon Principle and it's not the Principle that suffers, it's us! But remember Principle, and that instant everything works again. No apology required, It couldn't hear one if we shouted. Nobody's on probation, nobody's punished, no scoldings from the Infinite One. Remembering brings sudden healing through all our sums, for even in the imaginary playgrounds of appearance, the Principle is real. Now lets say instead of the Principle of Numbers, the Principle of Life. Pure Life Pure Knowing is Pure Self. Let's say that each of us is a perfect expression of that Principle, that we exist beyond Time, that we are immortal, eternal, indestructible. So we're free to do anything we want except two things: we can't create reality and we can't destroy it. So before time and after, through every moment, Life is and We Are.
