The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in Galilee
- Chapter 80 -
The Pharisee explains the dream.
The Pharisee said: "Friend, the dream that you have explained to me now does not seem to be so bad-foolish as you think, and according to me it has a very deep meaning of life for you, which I could make clear to you in a few words."
2
The scribe said: "Then do it, I gladly want to listen to you."
3
The Pharisee said further: "Listen: the gold- and silver canyon that made you so frightful and out of which you could find no more way out, showed you the condition of your soul who is armored with sheer lust for gold and who despite all his thinking and searching can find no more way out from that condition to the free space of the pure and living truth from God. The mineworkers that you saw, who took the mentioned metals in big lumps out of the mountains, are your own insatiable lusts for such earthly treasures. And the mineworker who said to you that there is no way out from that canyon, and who told you not very softly that you will certainly go to your downfall, is your own conscience that was - as if for the last time - seriously warning you because you did not pay anymore attention to his softer admonishing voice.
4
Then you became so frightful and afraid that you fell unconsciously to the ground. That is a sign for you, which according to me you should understand this way: because you began to despise and escape your lust, and by that removed the armor of your soul, you have given up your old love, and thus also your material life, and you fell as if dead to the ground. And because you have done that, soon another and already more free life opened up in you.
5
The man who soon came to you and who asked you a very important question that you could not answer, was again your conscience - your spirit of the beyond from God. When he walked away from you, you immediately saw an evil animal that was nothing else than your old lust, which despite the more free condition of your soul was chasing after you in your mind. But because you now abhor your old sin, even its remembrance is detestable and despising to you, and you make effort to flee that evil animal, so that it would not grab you again and bring you to your downfall and kill you. Your justified fright for your evil animal is seen by Heaven, and this sends a lightning of the living truth from God. It hits your evil animal so well that after rearing and twisting itself for a moment, it finally falls into the abyss and does not appear anymore in your soul.
6
Now, still at great distance, a pleasant little place is shown to you and it makes you feel completely at ease. You hurry to that place and to the very beautiful gardens in the neighborhood that are abundant with exceptional fruit trees and fruits. That comfortable place is the rest that came back to you, and the gardens represent the new truths from God that are very pleasant to you. But since they are not your property because you still are not acting accordingly, you still see them as it were outside of yourself and you dare not take the fruits.
7
In one garden you also saw very beautiful women and girls to whom you gladly wanted to talk to and make acquaintance. But when they, who are the deepest living truths, saw you as a purely outer man of reason, they run away, and you thought: 'Why do they not want me, why are they running away from me?' Then your conscience wakes up again and it shows you how poor you are in works of love for God and your fellowman, and how much injustice that you have done to the poor widows and orphans that you still have to make up for, for which your reason is still backing away.
8
Then your conscience says again: 'Grab him and bind him' - which means your outer reason - 'and throw him in a dark dungeon where snakes and frogs are dwelling'. In other words, this means as much as: you yourself, imprison your worldly reason by means of the living faith in God and His Anointed One who came to us, and banish it and give it back to the dark world and its poisonous worries, for out of the Word of God a new and pure spiritual reason must appear, otherwise you cannot enter the place of the comforting rest of the soul.
9
Then you are fearful again because you think that in your outer reason you possess your whole life, and therefore you still flee for a while over the hard and dead stubbles and stones that are the stumbling blocks. Those stubbles and stones are the foolish things of the worldly wisdom that makes you tired and fall down again. Happy are you when through this fall you become as awake in the spirit of the full truth from God as you now woke up again from your good and for you very meaningful dream back to the earthly physical life.
10
Look, this is how I have seen the meaning of your dream, and I have told you without any restraint. But if I have felt it correctly, this explanation did not completely come out of myself, for I clearly had the idea that a higher Spirit has put the words in my heart and mouth. And I believe also that the Spirit of the One to whom all powers of the Heavens and all elements of this Earth are obeying - as we have seen - did bring you into this dream condition.
11
But still, you can believe what you want. I have spoken, and I will now immediately search for and see what the great Master is doing, but you can now do what you want."
12
The scribe, who was very surprised about this dream explanation, said: "Listen, I will do what you will do. So let us go."