The Great Gospel of John
Volume 2
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Second Journey of the Lord: Nazareth - Cave at Bethabara (First Feeding of the People) - Mountain of Prayer - Walking on the Sea of Galilee (Peter's test of faith) - By ship to Genneseret in the bay with the same name
- Chapter 141 -
About the measure of the human spirit.
Here Jarah turns to the angel, asking: "Your and my Lord has graciously referred me to you, dear and fairest youth, and He said that I should ask you about a certain thing and that you would give me the right answer. Tell me therefore why these my worldly relatives and also the Lord's disciples have to sleep, whilst I am awake, and why must I behold this with my physical eyes, and why, according to the Lord, can I behold what they may see and hear only in a dream?"
2
Says the angel with a most amicable of voices: "You fairest daughter of the Lord have gone over completely into the spirit with your soul, and have hardly any further commonality with the matter of the world; your physical eye has become the eye of your soul, and your soul-eye that of the eternally immortal spirit. And hence you are fully located in your life-sphere, the way every human should be in actuality.
3
If therefore you take up an ever so distant star or other object into your purest emotion, the latter being the eye of the spirit, directing your soul's eye through the carnal eye, to what the eye of your spirit beholds, then an inner conflict arises between your spirit's image and the corresponding outer form of the same image. By virtue of this conflict, full enlightenment of the soul occurs in respect of the beheld object, and this then presents itself to you as it is in actuality.
4
And I say unto you fully and truthfully, that all men could do so if they were constituted in their feelings the way your are; but there are very few that equal you! These sleeping ones over there don't match your soul and your feelings! There soul is still far from looking through their physical eye, whilst the eye of their spirit is still firmly closed; wherefore their soul must first be enabled to perceive and view the supernatural for attaining to the spiritual, on its own, by depriving it of worldly views through first putting the physical eye to sleep.
5
However, the sleep of those resting here, is therefore also a sleep of a separate nature, which a person can only very seldom attain in a natural way.
6
Certain psychically and spiritually strong persons can induce such sleep in their weaker brethren through the laying on of hands; but the weaker brethren cannot do so with their equally weak brethren. But you shall not, I trust, by now, still be capable of doubting that the Lord can do so through the power of His will?"
7
Says Jarah: "May the Lord bless you for the clarifications you have given me, which I have understood quite well! - But now another question! Tell me, dear and most fair youth, how should I conceptualize your inexplicable speed?"
8
Says the angel: "Most beloved daughter of God! This is something that only an actual spirit can grasp, as such has nothing to do with time or space. We of ourselves are nothing, and what you see in us with the eyes of the spirit is God's thought, God's idea, God's word. We hence are pure spirits; no matter can be of any hindrance to us.
9
Since nothing can hinder a live spirit, a 'hither' and 'thither' necessarily are one and the same. Nothing material therefore is able to gather a speed like unto ours, since it finds an obstacle even in the most rarefied state, through which its movement is restricted.
10
Within infinite creation space there exist the central suns of the third magnitude in particular, which immediately are followed by the main central sun. These suns move within diverse, great orbits around the main central sun with a velocity too immense for your comprehension, for the purpose of keeping to a certain distance from the main central sun. Their orbits are, account of their great distance from the main central sun too extended for your comprehension.
11
Imagine this earth for instance as a sphere many thousand of times bigger than the portion you can see now, and that it would consist entirely of grains of sand that you have often seen at the coast. Now think of the number of all the tiniest sand grains necessary to make up such a sphere! And for each one of those grains imagine a distance from here to that star that we visited first; thereby you will have the approximate diameter of such orbit! Such an orbit of a sun of magnitude three around a main central sun, does of course take a million years at the least; but in such an immensely extended orbit, such a sun must in a moment cover a distance a thousand times from here to the star we first visited!
12
You will of course think: 'If so, then such sun is moving a thousand times faster than yourself as a pure spirit! For had we flown to yonder star at such velocity, then we should have been there a thousand times faster than with your spiritual speed!?'
13
Here I say unto you, that the immense velocity of such sun compared to my spiritual one is nonetheless that of a snail! For behold, in spite of the incomprehensible speed to you, yonder sun still needs a million years in its orbit around the main central sun, whereas I or some other spirit of my calibre can transit such distance in a moment so brief that you shall not be able to gauge in any sense the time between my departure and return; and I could in the same moment indeed cover an orbit many millions of times greater than that!
14
There is therefore a limitless difference in speed between that of a spirit and that of ever so greatly speeding matter, notwithstanding any degree fo further acceleration of the latter; for even if any matter covers the distance from here to yonder star in a moment, it still needs a second moment for a second such distance; and if matter covers a hundred thousand times such distance in a moment, then it shall need ten such moments for ten such distances, whereas I can cover any imaginable distance in one the same moment.
15
And behold, I and every spirit of my variety can do this, because there is not the minutest obstacle for us in all of eternal infinity; matter on the other hand finds all kinds of resistance, even in the most rarefied outer space, and can therefore never reach the velocity of a spirit! - Tell me now, fairest daughter of God, whether you have comprehended this to any degree!"