Sunsets Into Sunrises
Bishop Martin - The Progress of a Soul in the Beyond
- Chapter 146 -
DIFFICULT CONDITIONS ON EARTH FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO BECOME CHILDREN OF GOD.
1
(Say I): "My dearest little children, behold, man's body has various limbs and sense organs, but the ear cannot have what the eye has, nor the mouth what the nose . . . the head what the heart . . . nor the heart what the feet and hands have. If, however, the whole body is sound, so then are the individual limbs. The eye does not feel unhappy because it cannot hear, nor the ear, because it cannot see.
2
Thus, the head has never complained because it is more distant from the heart than the lungs. For, all the parts of the body, whatever their duty may be, obtain their life and enjoyment from one heart which houses love and life. And thus, you, too, My children, although not being the actual heart in God's great order, share all that issues from the heart of God. Those of you, however, who comprehend love - as you do - will also be accepted by love.
3
While you are still blood, you can become a part of any limb or organ. But once the blood has become the nutrient of a particular part of the body, fusing into a unit with it, such a fused particle of blood can never be carried on to another part.
4
I know that your sages are often full of wonder regarding the great privilege of the small world they usually call the 'Sacred Planet,' whose men - without exception - are children of the Most High. But think of the misery of their temporal lives in that world!
5
From infancy on, they have to put up with frail bodies, with hunger, thirst, excessive cold, and even worse, heat. Their bodies are subject to a thousand painful ailments and, eventually, also a painful death. Man's birth there is also painful and thus is his departure from the world.
6
Until about his twelfth year, man is often barely capable of a mature thought and is frequently shaped into a sensible person by the wielding of a rod. As soon as he has gained some sense, he is burdened with the yoke of numerous hard-to-keep laws, any infringement of which is punished severely, temporally and even eternally.
7
In addition to this, he has to work hard for his livelihood to keep his frail and cumbersome body alive. And, notwithstanding all that, he is often, to the last moment of his temporal life, uncertain whether some kind of life will await him after the painful death of his body. And, even if he believes there is another life, it is often described to him as terrible and less desirable than everlasting extinction. Despite all these tribulations, he loves his life so much that death appears to him the most terrible thing of all.
8
Considering what the human beings of your so-called 'Sacred Planet' have to go through in order to become fit for their eventual highest destiny, tell Me, could you envy them when you compare them with yourselves? Or would you like to take this upon yourselves to enable you, maybe, to become what they are not yet from birth and can never achieve unless they fulfill all the hard conditions and live in accordance with the severe laws sanctioned directly by the Supreme Divine Spirit? "