The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 136 -
The higher degrees of clear awareness.
The full second and well distinguishable higher degree of vision and feeling of the soul takes place in the physical life as well as in the dream when the spirit in the soul becomes just as active as the spirit of a plant in the grain of seed when it started from its actual soul, resting in the flesh of the grain, to form and to let grow the roots in the soil and the little leaf germs above the soil. Then the soul begins to unfold to a real form and penetrates on the one hand in itself, just like the roots of a growing plant are penetrating into the soil and begin to suck in the right food from the godly power in it, while on the other hand the plant itself, thus fed from the inside - as a result of that inner feeding from the pure, true and living godly power - will in the sphere of light lift itself up and develop itself higher and further to the ultimate completion as the actual and real form of the being of the soul.
2
But all this happens by the continuously increasing activity of the spirit in the soul, which will by this unite more and more with the soul. In this condition of the soul, his vision and feeling is no more a vague sensing but already a light and clear becoming aware of all life conditions and of the relation in which they are to his own life.
3
In this second and higher degree of vision, man knows himself and also God, and he can then also vision the spirits of respectively the souls of the already deceased ones as well as the still living people in the flesh and also see how they are. The visions of such a person will then not be material and unreal, but spiritual, pure, true and consequently real, and there will only be little difference between the clear seeing in an awakened condition and that of the bodily sleeping condition of a person.
4
And look, I brought you in such condition just now by the power which abides in me, and your soul could then unobstructed see and also speak with the souls who died already a long time ago on Earth. But in the second degree of vision you could only see and speak with such spirits who are on the same level as you are, except John who for the sake of his disciples moved from the Heavens by his own power to the just described second sphere of seeing and feeling. Otherwise you would not have been able to see and speak with him who is a very completed spirit.
5
And the fact that what you have seen stayed fully and clearly in your memory, that I have also accomplished with permission of the Lord, because what you have seen and heard was directly recorded in your bodily brains and also in your heart and kidneys. Without that, you would have brought back from all that which you have heard and seen, as little to the earthly awakened life as the soul of your brother - who, according to the report of your dream you met in Athens - brought back anything to the earthly bodily awakened life of what he discussed with you in his dream in Athens.
6
There are certain devote people who for the strengthening of their soul are almost daily during their bodily sleep living and acting in the spirit world. But when they bodily wake up again, they do not know anything of it. They only perceive a kind of consoling, strengthening feeling in themselves and many a man has the impression that he has heard and seen pleasant things.
7
Only those people who are as the prophets already on the transition to the third and thus highest and clearest degree of vision and feeling - because their spirit has already more unified itself with the soul - are also bringing back to the bodily awakened condition what they have seen and heard in the already higher spirit world, and can say it also to their fellowmen. Most of the little prophets were in such a condition.
8
But now look for instance at a stalk of corn, how it develops itself until in the highest point of its growth the ear begins to show and develop itself as fruit. Look, the same thing happens with man when the soul begins to pass completely into his spirit.
9
By the activity in the second degree of clear-sightedness, the spirit has begun to work on the still half material soul and has extended in him more and more, this as long as the whole soul has been filled by it and spiritually awakened to life.
10
In the third stage, the soul, completely kindled by the love of the spirit, begins to pass into the spirit, and to change all his substance that is still related to matter into pure spiritual essence, and then the true ear will be formed for the free eternal life.
11
In this condition, man is completely lifted up in the light, begins to be fed by it, and the more food he receives from it, the less food he, as an ever more spiritualized soul, will take from the substantial-material sphere of the soul. The ear of life blooms, thereby uniting itself with the spirit of love, and this produces again the grain of life, which at first is fed with the milk from the Heavens, but already after a short time with increasingly clearer and eternally firm and unwavering truths.
12
And look, then the grain of life becomes ripe, and the life of the soul, who in the second degree of vision - in a certain way unified with the spirit, forming the stalk of corn - is now in the completely ripe grain of life, and therefore the stalk that was so zealously formed before, withers, dies off completely, separates itself from the grain of life and is no more connected with the grain.
13
Look, this is then the third and highest degree of vision and life of the soul. In this condition the soul sees and hears everything there is and exists in the whole of creation. He sees the Heaven opened and can have the most illuminated and living contact with the whole spirit world. What such a soul sees, hears and feels, can never more be removed from his very clear memory, for his extremely clear sphere of vision and feeling is all-embracing, eternally lasting and all-penetrating.
14
The great prophets were in such a condition, and also all completed spirits of the Heavens are in such a condition, and I Myself am also in that condition, otherwise I could not have described it to you, for nobody can give something to someone what he does not have himself, as you surely will understand."