THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 232 -
Guidance in the afterlife and reincarnation.
I say: "If things with the foreign nations and peoples were as you depicted in your question, then it would truly look very sad for the salvation of the soul of the people on Earth; but it does look a bit different, and thus every person is given the opportunity, regardless of faith, to turn more to the spiritual than to the material. If that is the case, a soul can already on the other side no longer be attracted quite as much by the material pole, but instead it remains with its ever perfectly free will in a sort of equilibrium, in which it belongs neither to one pole nor to the other. I am describing this condition of the soul as a middle kingdom, in which the souls of the already perfected spirits are directed and most of all led to the better pole.
2
Certainly the issue of a complete turn-around goes quite slowly; but that does not matter, because there can never be any talk of a complete loss of a soul in any case. And if it should be consumed totally for the sake of a too great stubbornness by the full counter-pole "which certainly would be very bad "it will then have to let it fall again after a circulation of time, either on this Earth or also on another, of which there are countless many in endless space, to go through a test of fleshly life once again, without knowing and only guessing that it has already been through a test of the fleshly life once before. Nor would it help them to have such knowledge, because it would fall immediately again into its original evil as necessarily sensual and thus a second test of life would be purely in vain and scattered. In order to see that more easily, I will give you all an example:
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About two thousand years ago there was a highly domineering and cruel king who out of sheer desire for murder had thousands of people executed in the cruelest way and also had given in to all other possible tortures. Where his soul went after the death of the body is easy to guess!
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As I have shown you earlier, such a soul can never reach anywhere there except only the likes of itself. What will happen to it after a short time there, where its society is just the same as it is and in time even worse, because through a certain time period their anger and their rage constantly increases, any of you can easily imagine that; for everything has its limits still with the material souls, only arrogance and domineeringness do not, which some kings have shown only too clearly in antiquity during their lifetimes, since they presented themselves to their people as a god and demanded from them that they worshipped him as the only true god and honored him with all sorts of sacrifices that he demanded in the highest way. The familiar story of the former king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon shows that only too clearly.
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But that happens there to a much greater degree. Every such soul offers itself to the others immediately as the very highest and most powerful god, takes on immediately a terribly commanding position and straightaway demands everything from the other souls who think and act the same way.
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Indeed you cannot imagine with what rage the other similar souls, who have battled among one another for a long time for the same reason, fall upon the confident soul and put it to the most terrible tests; but such an extremely foolish soul even accepts all the imaginable torments and tortures for a time, because it is of the blind opinion that it will be recognized and accepted by the others as a god and ruler above all after having withstood all the true tests of hell.
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But since in the passing of time they then do begin to see that they were only the ridiculed, they burn with anger and rage towards their torturers, and then there is a battle and again fire to the highest degree, and these souls almost dissolve themselves in such a fire of anger, yes, they would in the end quite destroy themselves, if such a thing was possible!
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But such a permitted storm, however terribly it rages, always has its good side, in that it destroys a great part of the most harmful matter in such souls and thereby makes the soul somewhat purer. After many similar storms here and there the soul becomes soberer and seeks to get away from such a tumultuous society and seeks a way out; and then it is usually allowed to go to a better society, or it is engendered back into flesh
9
And now we are back to our example king, whose soul has made such a journey that I have just described to you in detail. The soul of a previous king of antiquity, who did his terrible deeds in furthest Asia, which has returned to this world, now comes to quite a different part of the world in the usual fleshly manner in a child's body, naturally born to some poor woman. Then such a soul is a child again and knows not the least about its previous condition, and it would be highly wrong if it had even the slightest memory of that.
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The child, once again of the male gender, now grows in poverty to a man and becomes a very honest and competent worker in any domestic or agricultural work after poor upbringing and other education, recognizes God and prays to Him and thanks Him for his daily bread. In the end he finds a true desire to serve other people for a paltry reward and to be useful. In the end our worker becomes old, weak, miserable and ill, and dies like all people on Earth.
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What happens now with his soul? It comes once again to the very good, working and active souls and has its joy to stand low and to serve everyone according to need. Such a good direction of the mind causes the soon awakening of its spirit from God, which is its other-worldly alter ego (second self).
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If that is the certain case, the full union with him will not be waited for long. Once this has happened, the full consciousness comes back to such a soul and with it the clear memory of all its previous states, and it praises God's wisdom, power and love, which even in the most pitiful circumstances has led him back to the true eternal life.
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But from this you can now see clearly enough how God is able to lead every soul that seems to you quite base back to true life and light on His path that is not investigable for any mortal."