The Great Gospel of John
Volume 6
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
At the Sea of Galilee (John 6)
- Chapter 53 -
The destiny of creatures.
At this the innkeeper said: "I also know in myself such a person and now I know also what I have to do. I do not want to speak of all the prophets and about Solomon's Song of Songs - all of which I have until now understood very little or none at all; but I have often thought while reading through such wise men of antiquity that they train people very much in thought by their mystical language and thus positively force them into an ever deeper soul-searching, and I find that very good. Once one has then gone right into himself, then one little light comes after the other, and one then becomes clear about quite a few things which previously seemed an unravelled mystery. But as I said, I am not speaking here about the incomprehensibility of the Scriptures of the old wise men and seers, but instead about quite natural things.
2
So for example, the true destination of any creature on this earth, and that brings us immediately to these noble fish. They are rare and even quite lively and lively animals of the water. It was man who first thought to catch them, driven by his hunger, and to eat them. Well, is this their true destination, to be caught by man, killed and then eaten as quite a delicacies?! If this is their true determination, I then do not know what their determination was when man had not yet thought to catch, kill and then eat them cooked.
3
I have thousands of similar questions, and the more I think about them, the more confused I become and distance myself from the light only ever more, instead of coming nearer to it, and with such investigations and pondering I can never really become clear about the certainly very wise intention of the Creator with this and countless many other creatures. Such would not really be necessary for man; for the creatures are already here, and the good and highly wise Creator will surely know why He created them.
4
But man is and remains a thinker and cannot reach any peace once he has become awake in his thoughts. And it is the same with me! Even if I know that all such vain thinking is useless for nothing, nonetheless I continue to keep thinking on and on and so I would like to receive true healing from You for this; for such thinking is becoming very annoying to me, and I would give anything if I could be freed for ever from it."
5
I said: "Yes, My dear friend, with this it is indeed quite hard to help you; for I would have to speak with you for a long time in order to reveal to you the true purpose of the existence of all the many types of creatures. Only in general I can say to you this much, that everything that is visible and tangible for man is spirit under judgement and has the determination to finally cross over into a free and independent life after a long row of all sorts of forms.
8
Take for instance a naked earthworm and you will easily see from its activity that its very limited life intelligence is quite in conformity with its form; whereas, if you look at the already quite complicated form of a bee, and by that you will find the much higher intelligence in the life form of this little animal. And so it is potentized right up to man.
9
Since these forms are only temporary receptacles and bearers of a more and more consolidating and constantly increasing intelligent life, and since this continually ascending life also according to measure and relation of greater unification of earlier simpler life-intelligences, leaves the earlier forms, it is certainly unimportant what happens in future to the lifeless form, which has been nothing else but an organic-mechanical, properly furnished shell for the purpose of the indwelling life intelligence. It does not make any difference to the great plan of the Creator whether these fishes are eaten by us or by other animals, and the ultimate purpose of life will nevertheless be unavoidably attained.
10
It is well known that the lifeless shells still contain some nutriment, and by the mutual devouring of the lifeless forms also what is nobler passes into another life, and so you see here on this earth through the whole large chain of created beings a continual struggle and an interchange of life up to man.
11
] Even man's outer form, meaning his body, is of value only as long as it is occupied by the soul which alone is alive. Once the soul has matured, it leaves this body forever and the body is consumed. It then does not matter by whom or by what. Whatever substantial the body still possesses which belongs to the soul, is given back to the soul. Everything else passes as nourishment into a thousand other created life forms. There you have in a nutshell a thorough description of everything that worried you so much in vain. - Do you now understand this?"