The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the region of Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 178 -
The necessity to veil the memory.
Raphael said: "Listen, my friend, if you really would have paid more inner attention to the example of the building of a big, strong castle, you hardly needed to ask me this question. What concern are those materials that existed before for the castle that is still not build? Let first the castle be completely constructed. Then the preceding materials will have a well recognizable connection for the whole castle.
2
If you would be very clearly aware of what your soul had experienced before on many different levels on this Earth up to your present condition, you would by that become so much divided and torn apart in your thinking, evaluating and willing in yourself that it would be impossible for you to absorb in your soul the moral unity, power and strength from the Spirit of God's love, which is now in your inner being, which is your only true life and which brings it about. That means to absorb it in such a way that your soul would become one in and with that Spirit.
3
Once the soul will become one with It, he will, while contemplating himself, receive that all-remembering clearness, out of which he will very clearly recognize, with a blissful feeling of gratefulness, the endless love and wisdom of that One, great Master Builder, and will forever admire Him. Then the possibility of looking back, which you desire now, will be beneficial for his eternal life, while now it would be terribly harmful for you.
4
Even now when the Lord has determined to totally veil the remembrance of the former conditions of the soul, men are still too easily and frequently falling into animal-like lusts and passions that cling to the soul - no matter how hidden - and submit to their lusts, leave God and behave like animals. How much more would they become like that if the Lord would not most wisely and as much as possible veil these remembrances?
5
The Israelites, who were the chosen people of God, began to grumble and to rage when in the desert they missed their full flesh pots of Egypt. The children of Abraham, who in Egypt had returned to an animal-like behavior, did not like the manna from God's Heavens, while by eating that bread, their body could have and should have been brought more on the level of the soul, and their soul more on the level of the spirit.
6
If the Israelite people, who were freed by Moses from the hard slavery of Egypt, possessed moreover the full remembrance of the conditions of the existence and the development of their soul, I tell you: the raging gluttony of such people would have become worse than that of all devouring animals, and much worse than your pigs, that, when they get hungry, do not spare their own little ones.
7
Can a spiritual development and subsequent union with the divine Spirit ever be imagined with people who are in that kind of condition - this from the thinking, knowing and willing soul who is so much burdened and broken down?
8
From what I have shown you now according to the full and obvious truth, you will understand that it would be very harmful for man if he would completely and clearly remember all the former conditions of his soul as long as he is still in the process on this Earth of becoming one with the divine Spirit according to the will of God that was revealed to him, and also out of the full freedom of his own will and understanding.
9
So be one with the divine Spirit in yourself, according to the will of the Lord, whom you very well know and understand now. Be you yourself a perfect master builder of yourself according to the will of the Lord. Then you soon will be very clearly aware why the wise, skilful and artful Builder of a big, strong castle, has wisely ordered, in this and that way, His formerly disordered building materials, from the greatest to the smallest, and has then joined and connected them, so that they can become a big, beautiful and everlasting whole.
10
But as long as you yourself are not thoroughly experienced and an expert in the mentioned building art, it is pointless for you to look at such great building with such critical look, for it finally will make you confused in every respect."