The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 243 -
The nature of God. The necessary difficult trials of life on earth.
Says I: "Yes, yes, this is the very knot, which I after the explanation of the brain have discovered not only in you but in several of you, and therefore have asked you to ask.
2
It goes without saying, that God, as the highest and purest love from eternity always unchanged, can never be in any way loveless, and that He will apply in the most enlivened manner all services and means available to Him, to cure any no matter how ill soul. However, He cannot take away the soul's own characteristic self, but must leave it untouched and place the soul in such conditions, which she, if everything else is to no avail, can better her through a kind of humiliation!
3
In the extreme case this road of course can become extremely cumbersome; however, nobody is guilty about this than the soul herself, who has become too obstinate and stubborn, and who of course became like that, because of her imperfectness of which I have told and explained to you before.
4
But this is the full-strong, very own will of the soul; she wants it like this and always does, what she thinks is best! Now, in this case an omnipotent and most powerful counteraction is of no use; because this would cause the soul the most unheard of tortures! - for already the softest influence causes her the most inexpressible pain; just think what she has to endure with a too strong influence?!
5
God in Himself is the highest fire of all fires and the strongest light of all light! But who can endure a fire if he himself is not fire and endure the highest light if he himself is not light?! There, look at the left brain which is still here! Do you see any fire therein or any light, shining only as bright as a little glow-worm in the night? What does it take until this brain becomes completely fire and the brightest light?
6
However, if I wanted with all force to begin to exert My influence here, you will not see these two left brain heaps anymore; since they immediately will be dissolved into the familiar little fire tongues and scatter, until My will grasps them and forms a new being from them. But what happens then to this current being?!
7
However, so that no being which existed once, can forever not be destroyed in its soul-like sphere and transforms into another being and thereby losing its primordial I, My forever unalterable fixed set up order is good! And even if a soul takes an unimaginable long time to reach its perfection, she still stays her very own primordial I, and will recognise herself unalterable as such forever, which is hopefully still more comforting, than for a soul as completely divided transforms into another individual, where necessarily all recollections of an earlier being had to cease and no trace of an earlier, concrete being would be left! What would then be the meaning of a freely self-determining pre-life? Would a human then be any better off than a creeping worm in the dust?!
8
The pre-life is mainly blessed with all kind of difficulties. A person, even if he is a son of a king, must endure from his birth until his grave some quite heavy trials. He often makes thousand plans, which he all wants to execute most successfully; but soon unforseen obstacles arise, and from all the nice plans nothing comes about. In its place all kinds of drudgeries, illnesses, annoyances, - in short, for every encouraging day, normally five days in which nothing particularly cheerful occurs, are following, and in every one year a person surely have thirty completely bad days!"