The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 36 -
The importance of controlling thoughts.
Said I: "You are a dreadfully sharp sensible being and have quite aggressively attacked the last law of Moses! Yes, yes, sometimes the children of the world are more clever than the children of the light; they often see the points of contention in a teaching better than the children of the light. But also with this last commandment you, irrespective the great sharpness of your mind, got it altogether wrong, just as the former ones.
2
You can think what you want, and you can not sin thereby, if your heart does not find pleasure in a disorderly thought. But if you find pleasure in a bad thought, then you already have joined your will with the bad thought which does not contain any neighbourly love, and you are not far from turning such thought, which has been made alive by your pleasure and your will, into an actual deed, provided the circumstances are favourable and allow the deed to become a reality without any danger. Hence, the wise monitoring of thoughts arising in the heart of a person, by the purified light of the mind and pure reason, are of the highest importance, since the thought is the seed for the deed, and the necessary and wise monitoring of thoughts could verily not have been more strikingly expressed, other than by what Moses had said: 'Do not desire this and that!' Since once you have a strong desire, your thought has already become alive by your pleasure and your will, and you will have a lot of trouble to totally suffocate such a revived thought in yourself. The thought, and the idea, is, as said earlier, the seed for the deed, which is the fruit of the seed. But as the seed, so will be the fruit!
3
Hence, you can think what you want; but do not revive any thought and any idea to become a fruit, before properly examining it by the judge of your mind and your reason! If the thought has passed the light- and fire test, only then you can revive it to become a fruit or deed, and then you can have a desire for something good and true; but you should not have a desire for something which is disorderly and apparently goes against neighbourly love! And therein lies, what Moses has expressed in his last law, and verily therein is never and nowhere found any contradiction with the inner functions of life, which you with the help of your sharp-witted rabbi believed to have found. What should, yes, what can become of a person, if he does not from early on learn to examine and sort his thoughts, and to discard all that which is impure, evil and false? I say to you, such a person would become worse and more evil than the most savage of animals!
4
In the good and wise order of thoughts lies a person's whole value of life. If Moses gave a commandment to regulate thoughts, wishes and desires, - can a supposed to be completely wise rabbi hold Moses in suspicion, as if he has not received this most important commandment to be considered, from the true spirit of God? See, see, My dear daughter, how far your rabbi was off the mark!"