The Great Gospel of John
Volume 3
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 78 -
Reason and emotion.
After a while Ribar says, "Friend, there are still some counter statements to be found against what you have just said! But because you are still a very strong hero of reason, you would nonetheless know what to respond to them again. I don't want in any way to disagree with you in this area, and the human education must proceed as you have just said. This education must constantly be a necessary forerunner for the later higher education of the spirit; but it should not be an ultimate education and it can never become that even with every most refined improvement.
2
For as reason was given us as an original regulator of our feelings for the greatest possible refining, then something correspondingly similar must lie in the thereby mature feelings like in a ripe fruit on the tree. But so that the fruit can reach maturity, the light of the sun along with its warmth was necessary, and likewise now and then a fertilizing rain. But once the fruit has become ripe, one will take it from the tree and keep it well in a good pantry so that it will become even riper and tastier; but if you leave the ripe fruit hanging on the tree it will not gain any more from this, instead it will totally spoil!
3
And so it is certainly the case with the feelings of a person. Once they have reached the certain maturity, they must then leave the external reason care and be brought to a higher maturity out of themselves, otherwise the whole initial maturity of the feelings was purely in vain. For this reason I told you that we, since we cannot achieve anything more with reason, should throw just this external reason over board and from now on devote ourselves to our mature feelings for further life leadership!"
4
Suetal says, "Brother, a divine breath must enter you from somewhere! For I know you; that is not your language! You are already transforming into Mathael"s wisdom! Yes, look, I cannot refute anything you say; for I feel through and through that you are seriously completely correct and stand in truth! I am still not that far, but I feel that I am now progressing."
5
But now the other ten also say that they are beginning to feel the same.
6
After these conversations Raphael returns to the twelve again, claps them in applause on the shoulders and say, "So, that is correct, friends; I like you much more like this than before with your mangy reason, and I can now tell you that you are completely on the right path!"
7
After these words of Raphael, Ribar stands up, hugs Raphael with all the strength of his love, presses him to his heart and says with great emotion, "Oh, you heaven and you, my heavenly one! Why could I not love you earlier with all the glow of my life!?" For since Ribar saw the foot and the hand and the eyes of the angel more closely, he immediately fell doubly in love with him.
8
But Raphael says, "Friend, love is certainly better than no love; but it is not suitable however in the area of the soul and its innermost life. You love me for my form which is now my natural exterior; but love is actually the innermost of a person and should never depend on something external; for the innermost thereby becomes the external and thus the image of hell. Thereby the divine order of life is turned around, the spirit of the soul which is love is turned to the outside and it must thus waste away as a premature baby must waste away which is driven out of its mother"s womb before time by a violent push from the outside.
9
My external form must not fascinate you, but only the truth which you take from my mouth. This will remain with you and make you free of everything and truly happy in your soul; but my present external form serves you only as proof so that you see how beautifully the full love is paired with love in its purity! Do you understand this?"
10
Ribar, standing back from his powerful hug, says, "I understand very well; but at the sight of you our reason truly becomes a mountainous burden!"
11
At this Suetal says to Raphael, "That has always been an old evil with my friend Ribar. He cannot bear a beautiful form, whether male or female, without becoming passionate; but it is all the same to me. I also like a beautiful figure clearly better than an ugly one but I never become passionate about it! So up until this time every very beautiful woman and girl has had rest from me!"
12
Raphael says, "But such a thing is not due to your merit, but to your nature! For a blind man can have no merit in that he is not attracted by some sort of beauty of the world, and it is no virtue to the deaf if his ear is not laid on the ear horn. But people of this sort are much more difficult to awake in their soul than those whose mood in the beginning of the spiritual development is more open than any other.
13
You see, with Ribar the spiritual, even if not purified, is already poured out through his flesh, since everything externally beautiful must have clearly a spiritually more complete reason in it; and so a certain external falling in love with a beautiful object a mute but nonetheless mutual spiritual recognition and warming. Only it must be entrusted to a good leadership, through which it will be lead back to the real reason for life, which is no difficult job since the actual spirit of life, which proclaims itself through love, is the real intelligent being in a person and thereby easily perceives and actively understands its nature and order."