The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
In Cana in the valley
- Chapter 214 -
Philopold's spiritual vision. An occasion with the family upon the solar world Akka. The converted Philopold's hymn of praise to God's love. The recently-signed contract. Reason for the veiling of our retrospection to our pre-existence. About the relationship between body, soul and spirit. Man's spirit a miniature God. Difference between terrestrial, spiritual being, and other worlds.
Philopold is absorbed with reading the scrolls, and as his inner vision opens therewith, he says after a good while, with the greatest astonishment, 'Yes, it is so. I now am seeing into all the endless depths of my being, seeing all the worlds upon which I have already lived, together with the places and locations I lived from birth to departure from those worlds; I am seeing what I was and what I did on one or the other celestial spheres, seeing also all my next of kin; and behold, upon Akka I also see even my parents, my many brothers and most dear sisters. Yes, I even hear them talk about me with concern, saying, 'What could have become of Murahel? Will he have found the great spirit in human form within endless space? He will not be thinking of us, because Archiel the Messenger of the great Spirit has veiled his retrospection, until he will call him three times by his real name.'
2
Behold, thus I hear them speak now, even as I'm seeing them physically as well. Now they are going to the temple to look up the documents with the difficult life-conditions; yet they don't find same. But the high priest of the temple is telling them that Archiel picked up the documents a few moments ago on behalf of Murahel, but that they shall be restored in a short while. And now they are tarrying in the temple, giving a sacrifice for me.
3
Oh love, love, you divine power! How endlessly far stretchest Thou Thy holy arm. Everywhere the self-same love. Oh God, how great and holy art Thou and how fraught with mysteries is free life. What man on earth can probe the depths that I see now? With what insignificance miserable man walks this lean earth, waging mortal combat not infrequently for a span of earth, even whilst carrying within himself what billions of earths cannot grasp.'
4
With these words, Philopold falls silent, going over to the angel to return the two scrolls to him, remarking, 'Restore them to where they are waiting for them.'
5
But the angel says, 'Behold, I also brought a writing utensil, the very same one with which you wrote the documents in the temple up on Akka. Sign yourself doubly on each document and your name here, and keep the writing utensil for remembrance.'
6
Philopold does that, and the angel takes the documents and vanishes.
7
After a few moments, - those he needs to talk to the high priest on Akka, he is back among us, asking Philopold what he thinks now.
8
Says Philopold, 'As I handed the two scrolls back to you, the vision disappeared, and I hardly remember more than a dream, where consciousness tells only that there was one, whose details however no amount of memory-tugging will recall. I also notice that I hold some strange writing utensil in my left hand, yet I hardly recall how I came by it. Hence I would like to know why one retains either very little or nothing at all of the phenomena from the domain of the inner life. Why so?'
9
Says the angel, 'Because here it is all about becoming a completely new creature out of and in God. Once you will have become a completely new creature out of God, and achieve the childhood of God, everything shall be added back unto you.
10
In all the other countless worlds, you are created externally and internally what you are to be, but here God hands the external formation to the soul, which builds its own body in accordance with its created order. But the task of the spirit placed into every soul, primarily is to develop the soul by keeping the Commandments given him from without. Once the soul as a result has achieved the right degree of ripeness and development, the spirit spreads into the entire soul, and the entire man is then perfected, a new being, and that fundamentally out of God, since the spirit within man is no less than a God in miniature, because fully out of the heart of God. But man is then so, not through God's deed but through his fully own, and is for that reason a true child of God. And I repeat to you in all brevity:
11
In no other heavenly sphere do men have to form themselves, for they are so of God, or what amounts to the same, are so through His children. But here men have to develop completely by themselves, in accordance with revealed order, or they could not possibly become children of God. And thus a perfected man on earth, as a child of God, is fully identical with God, although an undeveloped one, in contrast, is below the kingdom of animals.'