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 228 -
The counterpole of God.
I say, "That is why I gave you all the examples, so that you would be able to understand more easily the following explanation of Satan and his angels; and so listen to Me now further!
2
You now see very well that after the experience you have just had the very strongest giant without a very firm opposing support, which we will call a counter-power or a counter-pole, is not able to do anything. But the same relationship extends also, even if going into the endless greatness, to the very highest divine being!
3
If the eternal, very freest, wisest and all-powerful spirit of God had not given Himself right since the beginning of eternity a counter-pole, it would never have been possible for Him as a pure positive God to call suns, worlds and all the countless many beings on them into existence.
4
But what does this counter-pole look like and what does it consist of? Is it a very foreign thing to the positive, free pole of divine life and power, or in a certain respect just the same? Is it a lord of itself, or does it depend in all its parts only from the positive pole of divine power?
5
You see, I will answer these very important questions as fully as possible, and you will then see immediately who the so-called Satan, and who his devils actually are! And so now pay attention!
6
If a person for example wants to present something, he begins to think, and a number of fleeting images storm through his mind as individual thoughts. If the thinker gives himself longer time with the examination of his inner spiritual images, which one calls 'thoughts' and also begins to hold on to them more and more, he soon and easily becomes aware that some better thoughts have been attracted and in a way have already joined into an idea of light. The soul then contains such an idea as a defined image strongly in its memory centre, and one could call that a basic idea.
7
But now the train of thought goes forth, just like the water of a current, and under the many thoughts flowing above something more appropriate comes again, is immediately attracted by the basic idea and unites itself with the same, whereby the basic idea then already becomes brighter and more definitely defined.
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This happens for a time until besides the basic idea several following side ideas have formed harmonious with the first and thus already represent the comprehension of some concrete issue or action to be undertaken and its consequences.
9
Once the thinker has come to such a completely defined, clear expression, he finds pleasure in it and seizes and penetrates it immediately with his love's fire of life. The love wakes the thinker's will and the ability to act, and then the inner comprehension is lifted to a material realization.
10
Now the previous, purely spiritual expression no longer stands alone as a spiritual image in its full clarity in the sensorial of the soul, but instead also as a likewise created firm symmetry of the inner spiritual image in the material nature and is set up for the use of him who had previously thought it up.
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The individual thoughts and ideas, from which a fully concrete expression was built then, are still totally of a spiritual form and make up with the spirit one and the same pole, and we will call it the main pole of life.
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The concrete total expression, consisting of many different thoughts and ideas "if also as a pure, spiritual image in the soul "is, because it has already a certain fixed existence, no longer obedient to the main pole, but instead to the counter-pole, because in a certain way it exists as an excluded whole in all its parts in comparison with the soul and can be set out through further activity quite as a material thing and thus as a definite and fixed thing can no longer belong to the sphere of life of the spirit and the soul. Now listen to Me just a little longer!"