The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 54 -
The relationship between body, soul and mind.
Says I: "See, only now he will enter the third stage; pay close attention to what he has to say!"
2
Ask Cyrenius: "Lord, if Zorel falls asleep on the lawn which is invisible to us, what is the reason for this? Is this a must, or could he enter the third stage without falling asleep?"
3
Says I: "If a soul would be pure, it would also go without a certain sleep; but as long as the soul is connected to the body by certain bonds, a certain anaesthesia must occur between the changeover of stages, in which the soul unnoted passes over into the next stage. What the soul of Zorel has seen and spoken in the second stage, was, except for himself, a circumstantial appearance; only in the third stage will she become truly clairvoyant, and what she is going to say there, will be a full reality."
4
Ask Cyrenius: "What actually is this sleep? How and whereby does it originate?"
5
Says I: "Is it really necessary for you to know that? Now then, if you really want to know this, I must explain it to you, and therefore listen!
6
If you carry a shirt on your body and has according to the Greek custom trousers on your legs, shirt and trousers live because of the movement of your body, this means they must submit to your will, just as the limbs of your body must submit to the will of your soul. If you in summer plan to take a bath, you take off your clothes, because you not need them in the bath. Shirt and trousers are in a necessary state of rest while you are in the bath, and have neither motion nor movement. If you are getting out of the bath again, your shirt and trousers will immediately have the same motion and movement as before and will so to speak live with you. But why did you take off your clothes to take a bath? See, because they were getting heavy and started to press you! But you strengthened yourself in the bath, and your heavy clothes will feel completely feather light after the bath.
7
If your soul becomes tired and weak from the discomforts during the day, the need awakes in her for a revitalising and strengthening rest. The tired soul then soon takes off her jointed flesh garment and enters the restorative bath of a spiritual water and bathes, cleans and strengthens herself; if she got her strength back, she again puts on her flesh garment and moves its heavy limbs with great ease.
8
But now you surely have seen or rather observed real lively by the monologue of Zorel, that in his soul another inner light-person out of the heart of the soul started to sprout, to whom the soul stands in the same relationship, as the material body to the soul. Now, this light-person in this his soul as his jointed garment, never before received any strengthening whatsoever; he was lying in the heart of the soul like the egg in the woman without the male stimulation, excitement and awakening. By this very treatment the actual primordial life germ became stimulated, excited and awakened for the moment by My and Zinka's word, and since this has happened to him, he started to grow for as long as his entire soul, which is his garment, was filled with his pure spiritual being.
9
But the soul, although been purified as much as possible for the moment, still contains certain material parts in her, which are too heavy for the pure spirit, since he never was used to carry such a yoke before. This spirit person which was so to speak awakened in an artificially spiritual manner and was forced to grow rapidly, is still much too weak to carry the slow-moving heavy soul and longs for rest and strengthening. Thus this false sleep of the soul on the mountain lawn is therefore nothing else than the spirit taking off the most material parts of his soul; he only keeps what is similar to him in the soul, while the other must rest in the meantime, just like the body rests silently while the soul is strengthening herself, or like the shirt is resting when you take a revitalizing, strengthening bath.
10
During the strengthening of the more noble human sphere and the simultaneous resting of the coarser and less noble outer parts, there still exists a connection. If somebody would come while you refresh yourself in the bath, and would take away your clothes and started to destroy them, then your natural and necessary love for your clothes would immediately raise an immense and fierce veto. A much closer connection exist between the body and the soul; who wanted to take away the carnal garment and try to destroy it before its time, would be treated by the soul in a very strange way.
11
But the connection between soul and spirit is much more intensive, because the soul, especially if very pure, is herself a spiritual primordial element, and the spirit would make a very terrible movement, if one tried to take away his body and dress completely. He immediately would become the highest fire and would destroy everything getting close to him.
12
But the soul must rid herself of all matter completely, until the spirit can attract what is related to him in her as his own, to become a perfect I with it. The matter of the soul is visible to the spirit in that, whereby the soul is dressed. You have heard when Zorel spoke of a dirty shirt, which he himself washed in the lake, then wringed and put on as a still moist garment. See, this garment is still the material outer side of the soul, which must be taken off and put to rest, before the most inner, divine spirit person can penetrate the now closely related soul fully and to become one with her.
13
It always requires a little time during the moment of transition, because everything belonging to the sphere of a free life, must first enter with the new and more noble being in a full relationship (spiritual marriage), before the new being or the new, heavenly person can by himself start to feel, think, see, listen, smell, taste and to act independently. The necessary transition takes place in the certain sleep; if the transition is finished, the new person is completed and requires for his only completely pure spiritual existence for ever no further transition anymore.
14
In such a state a person is then totally perfect and his being cannot become even more perfected; only with regard to recognizing and a continual perfection of the most pure love and wisdom of the heavens and their ordering, ruling and leading power of the entire infinity, there is a continual increase to eternity and thereby also achieving a continual higher bliss as a result of the continual higher love, wisdom and power.
15
Our Zorel will soon appear as such a perfected spirit-person and will continue to inform us by his carnal mouth about the perfection of him to the highest level of a perfected human being. Just pay attention; soon he will start talking again!"