The Great Gospel of John
Volume 4
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus near Caesarea Philippi (cont.)
- Chapter 76 -
On the secret of the inner spiritual life.
Upon these words of Cyrenius Zorel bowed deeply before us all and immediately got back to Johannes, who again received him with all friendliness, and asked him how he felt now.
2
Says Zorel: "I'm very well, what you clearly can see from my clothes; once you own a healthy shirt, a toga and carry a Greek coat made from blue Merino around your shoulders, you feel earthly seen quite well! Of course regarding the spiritual well being, I say to you, there is still a tremendous shortfall! If God wanted me to look newly dressed in the spirit just like my body now, I surely would feel much better; but this will take more time!
3
A question, friend, you surely will allow me to ask and it reads like follows: You are people like me, you have flesh and blood and the same senses as I am; but you have given me proof of your spiritual strength, that exceeds sky high everything which I have encountered so far! The question is now, how did you get hold of it. Who taught you and your colleagues this? How did you came onto this road?"
4
Says Johannes: "To explain this to you, would mean nothing to you; but if you do what I will tell you now, you will find the teaching in yourself, and your awaken spirit will, strengthened by the spirit of God, guide you in all truth and wisdom. If you want to learn any kind of art, you must go to an artist, so that he can show you the skills; then comes the diligent practice, so that you can make the skills to such an extend your own, that they completely match those of the master, and then you are an artist just like your master.
5
If you want to learn to think, you must go to a philosopher; he will draw your attention to causes and effects, and thereby you will start learning to think and to conclude and will say: While the water is a liquid body, it can easily placed in a state of unrestlessness; because of its weight it must flow down the valley, since according to the most general experience until now, everything with weight must turn itself to the depth of the earth, because of a gravitational power inside the depth of the earth, and must continue to strive towards it according to the unchanging will of the Creator, who is a must-law in the whole of nature.
6
If the water has reached the deepest bed in the sea, regarding flow it comes to rest, - but in itself it still remains a liquid body; and if a stormy wind blows over the wide surface, it brings the otherwise quiet surface of the water into a wavy movement, and this waving of the water is in fact nothing else than a striving of the liquid body of water to find rest. But since nothing has such a strong desire for rest than water, it can also in the easiest and fastest manner brought out of the balance of its rest.
7
Therefore a final conclusion can be made: the more liquid any kind of body is, the more it bears the desire for rest in it; and the more desire for rest it expresses in its bodily being, the easier it can be placed in a state of unrest. But the easier it is to bring an elementary body in a state of unrest, the more liquid it has to be. From this example you can see, how one can start to learn to think in a school of philosophers, and how one can start to conclude the effect of a cause and also vice versa.
8
Only, this way of thinking moves within a circle, from where there is nowhere any escape to be found and also cannot be found. All this thinking has therefore very little or no use at all for a person, with regard to his inner, spiritual being, will and thinking. Just as you can only make any kind of art from an artist, and an orderly rational way of thinking from a philosopher, your own, you also can only learn the inner, spiritual way of thinking from a spirit, namely from the everything penetrating spirit of God in yourself, - this means: only a spirit can awaken a spirit; since one spirit sees and recognizes another spirit, similar like one eye sees and recognizes another, that it is an eye and how it is constituted.
9
The spirit is the most inner eyesight of the soul, whose light penetrates everything, because it is a most inner and therefore purest light. From that you can see now, how it is with learning of different things, and how you have to have for everything you want to learn the most suitable teacher, otherwise you remain an everlasting blunderer; once you have found the most suitable teacher it also depends very much on doing very precisely and diligently, what the master instructed or advised one to do.
10
If your spirit awakens within you, you will notice his voice as light thoughts in your heart. You must very careful listen to them and direct your whole life sphere accordingly, hence, you will thereby provide for your own spirit an ever increasing space of effectiveness; thus your spirit will grow inside you to a manly size and will penetrate your whole soul and with her your entire material being.
11
If you have reached with yourself this point, then you are also be able, not only to see and recognize what all natural people can see and recognize with their senses, but also such things, which are unresearchable for normal people, as you have discovered in me, since I, without ever seeing or knowing you before, could precisely tell you everything what you ever had done on this earth and what you kept a so closely guarded secret.
12
Now I have given you a small pre-taste from the circumstances, so that you can see and recognize, how things stand regarding the spirit. But all this still means very little or nothing at all to you; you must now experience, what you must do to awaken your spirit. However, to mark this out for you, I'm not entitled to, but someone else who is also among us, and whose whole being is most densely penetrated by the spirit of God. Only He will show you the way of the truth and call, as Himself the spirit of all spirits, through your flesh your spirit: 'Wake up in the love to God and from it to your brothers in the name of Him, who was forever, is, and always will be forever!' - and now tell me, how you have experienced everything I have told you!"