The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the Vicinity of Caesara Philippi (Matthew 16)
- Chapter 226 -
Worldly concerns and their deleterious effects upon the soul.
1
(The Lord:) "Therefore I now say unto you all, that you cast off all unnecessary troubles from yourselves; for every worldly concern is a material tie with which the soul ties herself to matter through the original Adamitic scar! The more the soul binds herself to the matter of her flesh, the more the development of God's spirit within her must suffer. And the more the soul then fuses herself to the body through worldly care, which body is a mere judgment, - a regrettable necessity and therefore death, the more she also loses consciousness and recognition of eternal, indestructible life within her.
2
He who therefore still harbours much fear of physical death, is still strongly bound with the flesh, and feebly with the spirit; because much love towards the life of this world is strong evidence of the soul's lack of concern for the everlasting life of the spirit within her, and the blame lies with the old scar that Adam has struck into his own flesh, and that of his descendants, incarnate souls.
3
And yet every determined soul can heal itself of such harmful scar, because God had already in Adam's presence taken the precautionary measures, and Adam was nearly completely healed towards the end of his days. Henoch was however completely healed, wherefore, like several other forefather, he was already transformed in his flesh. But because their descendants had nevertheless mixed with the children of unhealed fathers, the old Adamitic curse remained, with varying degrees of incidence for mens' torment.
4
Wherefore also the women's painful childbearing, as well as the very painful types of death of man. Because a nature-soul already wounded by man's seminal stream, immediately binds more stubbornly with the mother's flesh, and must therefore be born into the world under all kinds of forceful band-rupturing. Children such as an Isaac however and many others in the world, have been born into the world without pain on the mother's part.
5
Such is the case also with dying. People with strong ties to earthly life, whose sole concern is the world, having much to suffer already during their short earth-life, often become sick in soul and thereafter certainly scone in body, and are in great misery. And they have often to contend with unbearable pain before separation from body, passing from the body in a severely numbing pain that often lingers afterwards for lengthy periods, especially with souls that wallowed in physical comfort in the world. Whereas souls who in the world had reached the commendable conclusion that all the treasures of the world are of no use to it - since they have to sink into death with the body, having freed themselves from Adam's old scar as much as possible and having instead found God's "Atman" within them, nurturing same with all care, - have firstly very little of any kind of sickness to withstand.
6
Once the soul's life is tied to its spirit, in time its body also shall assume a spiritual direction and hence become less sensitive to impressions from the outer material world. Because every sickness usually arises from the shearing of some tie with the world. In short, through the life-hungry soul the body is stuffed with a thousand diverse needs. If, on account of climactic or a thousand other conditions, it cannot obtain satisfaction, then one or the other band must be broken, soon making the body sick and to suffer exceedingly, and with it the soul, which ultimately and together with the body is the bearer of the larger part of the pain.
7
If however the soul, through much self-depravation has trained to do without much of the death-bearing world-habitat, then there shall ultimately not be many bands left between the dead goods of the world and the body, and not much shall be left over for painful rupturing. If therewith the basis for many physical sicknesses is lifted, then I Myself would like to see from where these should enter the body and the sensible soul.
8
With such people indeed the body does not easily feel any pain, even if severely tortured from without.
9
Behold the youths of furnace fame! They sang joyfully and praised God. And when in time their bodies were consumed by the intense wicked exterior they yet suffered no pain, for they had long since rid themselves of all ties with world and were one with their divine spirit. And thus, secondly, such soul, fully united with its spirit, having long relinquished all firmer ties with the material world in place of a tender spiritual one feels no pain at all when separating from her body, feeling rather an all pervading blessed ecstasy, incapable of losing either consciousness at separation nor the light of the soul-spiritual sight, nor hearing, smelling, tasting and the most refined sense of touch, as possessed now by our angel Raphael.
10
But, as said, to achieve this, man must rid his body of the old, Adamitic original sin, and this is impossible to achieve in any way other than I have now shown you: the soul must voluntarily throw worldly cares overboard, - there is no other way! Once these are cast off, the old divine order is regained and man is then completely man within God's order. And behold, this is what is rightly called 'original sin'! In actuality it is obviously the flesh which one appropriately calls the 'original sin'; but seen by spiritual correspondence it is the manifold concerns for the flesh which is Adam's hard-to eradicate sin within all his descendants.
11
This soul-scar however cannot be fully eradicated by any means other than the one indicated by Me, and by still another means which shall only be indicated and given to mankind by the end of My mission into this world for the salvation of their souls; John the Baptist in the desert had already been a forerunner for this means."