The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 256 -
The outer life sphere of the soul and that of the spirit.
1
(The Lord:) "Ah, when at times of a certain enrapturing for a few moments the spirit with its primordial fire ether emits into the perfect soul, then the distant feeling, distant effectuating and distant viewing is raised to a higher power, and in such moments it is for the soul possible, to reach the even very distant stars and look at them with great precision; but when the spirit in the soul withdraws orderly, the soul with her pure outer-life-sphere can only reach effectively, as far as she under the most favourable conditions can find anything to her elementary corresponding. Her outer-life-sphere resembles the emission of an earthly visible light. The further away from the flame, the more weakly and faintly it becomes, until finally nothing is left then night and darkness.
2
However, it is quite different with the outer-life-sphere of the spirit. It is equal to the ether, which fills the entire, infinite space as completely evenly distributed. When the spirit freely emerges in the soul and is excited, in the same moment also its outer-life-sphere is endlessly far away excited too, and his viewing, feeling and effectuating reaches without the slightest limitation so endless far away, as the ether fills the space between and in the creations through and through; since this ether is - said among us - actually absolutely identical with the eternal life-spirit in the soul. The spirit is only a condensed focal point of the general life-ether, which fills the whole of infinity. And when fully grown through the soul and gets into contact with the outer ether, his feeling, thinking and viewing is immediately unified with the infinite outer-life-sphere to an endless distance unweakend, and what the large life-ether in endless space feels, sees, thinks, wills and effectuate by surrounding and penetrating everything, is also felt, viewed, thought, willed and effectuated in the same moment by the separate spirit in a soul, and this also is felt, viewed, thought, willed and effectuated by the soul, for as long she is penetrated by her spirit and for as long he is connected with the infinite and most general outer-life-ether which he is so closely related to.
3
The difference between the outer-life-sphere of a still so perfected soul on its own and the outer-life-ether of the spirit is therefore easy understandable endlessly and inexpressively large, and you will now begin to understand, how it is possible for a spirit, to place himself feeling, seeing, thinking, wanting and effectuating in a still so faraway distance, yes to penetrate the whole of infinity on its own, because he is in the whole, eternal infinity as completely uninterrupted on all points of the entire, eternal space unweakend one and the same.
4
If then by the dwelling where soul parts of the general spirit are separately present, they nevertheless henceforth form a perfect oneness with the overall-spirit, as soon as they have penetrated the soul completely as a result of the conditional spiritual rebirth. By that they most certainly do not loose their individuality, because as life-focal-points in the human form of the soul, they also posses the same form and thereby with their soul, which is actually their body, as spirits who immediately can see and feel also necessarily can feel and very clearly observe everything which is particularly individually present in their enclosing souls. For this reason, however, a soul, once completely filled by her spirit, can also see, feel, hear, think and want everything, because she is completely one with her spirit.
5
If during this quite tangible explanation still no light has come up in you about the being of the spirit and its abilities, I truly Myself would not know, in which manner I could have made this even more clear to you before your rebirth of the spirit in your souls! Therefore all of you speak quite openly, if you now finally have understood Me regarding this most important point!"