3. THE COMMANDER’S CRITICISM ABOUT THE WAR IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
[1] The captain led us along the river onto a small hill sparsely overgrown with palm trees, from where one could enjoy quite a marvelous view all around into the far distance and overlook the river and its wide bends very far away, almost to the vicinity of Serrhe. There we sat on the lawn and enjoyed for some time the really nice distant view and the captain told us one story after another about occurrences taking place here and there and all listened to him attentively; for he was a good speaker and commanded the Greek language quite well, which everybody in our society understood, because this language was nearly in the whole Near East most widely spoken. [2] While the captain was still busy with his story telling zeal, it occurred that a gigantic eagle flew quite low above us, carrying a rabbit as prey in its mighty claws. [3] And the captain said to Me: “Most elated and most wondrous Savior, see, this again was a piece of a sad nature story, where one on the whole dear earth sees nothing than hostility over hostility! One animal is the enemy of another and this continues up to humans, who in the end is the biggest enemy of all other things and beings, yes even his own he does not spare in his rage and fury. Only the same species animals seem to have a kind of a not hostile love to each other; however, unequal species are mutually the biggest enemies. This apparently provides for an all-wise and all-good God a bad witness. [4] Could the all-wise and almighty God not provide other food on earth for the animals, accept that they have to kill each other and feed themselves with the corpses? What bad could the poor rabbit have caused the eagle, that he took it in its mighty claws and to carry it somewhere to tear it to pieces and eat it alive? And there exist many such predators who only feed on the flesh and blood of other, weaker and softer animals. Couldn’t they feed just as well from the grass like oxen, donkeys, goats and sheep?
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"[6] Now the captain could no more keep silent. He quickly went to Raphael and said: “Listen, wise and mighty citizen of a better world than this Earth. Generally I am very satisfied with the often beautiful arrangement of this Earth of ours, how it is formed and how the plants are ordered, but what concerns the animals, in the kind of circumstances in which they live and are active among each other, absolutely not.
[7] It was taken care of that all the plants and vegetation would take their food from the soil, from the water, from the air and from the warmth of the sunlight, and so they would excellently flourish. Only the animals, and for a great part also us human beings must catch animals, kill them and eat their flesh in order to feed our body. [8] Look, this makes the heart and the mind of man unmistakably wild. This is what I noticed in Rome all too often with the often terrible bullfights and other fights of wild, devouring animals in especially built and arranged cages. For in Rome and also in a lot of other places such fights with animals are kept to ever stir up the eagerness for war and the brave fighting spirit and keep it alive, especially for the soldiers and the citizens. [9] And from who did men learn that wild waging of war where no trace of the love for God and of the love for fellowman can be found? [10] Here, look down there in the water. What did those poor fishes actually do wrong that they often are caught out of the water and eaten up by thousands by the greedy water birds? Can all those numberless different sorts of animals in the air, on the Earth and in the water not feed themselves just like the tame house animals with the also numberless different sorts of plants? Must all kinds of flesh eating animals of prey search their food in the flocks of the meek animals and thus provoke men to a wild battle by their cruelty which is implanted by the might of God?" [11] Men had to invent artificial weapons to fight against the devouring beasts. By that he learned how to fight, kill and conquer, but did he by that win anything to make his heart and mind nobler as God advised him? [12] Now look, I very often thought about this subject and was not able to receive even a half satisfying solution from any wise person for this true sphinx’s mystery. Everywhere it was said: ‘The wise gods will know why they have allowed all this.’ [13] Yes, this is certainly so, but did men win anything by that for their heart and mind? Yes, for the hunting, fighting and waging of war they won a lot, and then also to give laws to rule and to be often as cruel as a hyena in their justice regarding those people who sinned against their laws. But for the rest, really not many good things appeared from the fact that they learned to fight – first against the wild animals and very soon after that also among each other. [14] You are wise and powerful from the Spirit of God in you. Teach me now also in the right manner about this matter which seems very important to me.” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN Book 22, chap. 100) * „[2] Look, on a celestial body where it is the people’s destiny for what concerns their soul and their spirit to become perfect children of God, everything must be exactly arranged as it is arranged on this Earth. [3] Although your eye can see and your reason can recognize nothing else except judgment, persecution, robbery, murder, death, decay and perishability, but it is not as you imagine these things, but quite different. [4] Firstly the laziness, which is an inevitable attachment of the matter of the body, is the greatest enemy of the soul who must become more and more awake and active, for only through that can he become completely similar to the Spirit of God in him, and thus become similar to God. And the hotter the countries are where people have built their houses, the more they are threatened by this first enemy of the soul. [5] If in such countries there would not be all kinds of animals that are troublesome for man, and if he did not have to take care for the nourishment of his body, then he also would not take care for the development of the powers of his soul. He soon would look like a sea polyp or like the roots of a tree that have nothing else to do except to suck to them the nutrients that are suitable to them, from the water, from the soil and from the air through its organic-mechanical system. [6] Look, this is the most important reason why all kinds of things were created for man on this Earth which will wake him up to various activities – firstly for his body, and then also for his soul, which is the most important. [7] For what concerns the second reason, every thinker can easily discover this for himself. Just imagine the Earth as a completely uniform big globe. On its vast surface there would be only completely the same brooks, lakes and seas. No mountains, no other animals than sheep, no birds except chickens, and no other water animals than only precisely the same kinds of fishes everywhere. In the same manner on the earth’s surface there would only grow one kind of grass as nourishment for the sheep, as well as only one kind of fruit to feed the people and the chickens. Furthermore also only one kind of fruit tree and one kind of tree to build a simple dwelling hut. And so there also would be only one kind of stone everywhere, as well as only one kind of metal of which men would be able to make the simplest utensils for their livelihood. [8] Now say for yourself how much progress the people could make in the development of their concepts, ideas and imaginations in such a world. [9] I do not have to explain to you how extremely meager their reason and mind would look like, while they have to become more elevated and purer. But I point your attention on the very poor state of development of the soul and the spirit of the living human beings on Earth who live in regions where there are no mountains in the wide environment, where only here and there some uniform grass on the ground is growing, and furthermore some meager shrubs that are pining away at the shores of a few ugly brooks and lakes that look like pools. [10] Such regions are not unknown to you. What does the development of the spirit of those inhabitants look like? Look, for the greatest part they are wild. And why? Because they cannot come to any development of their concepts, ideas and productive imaginations for the development of the reason and mind, because of the lack of an as great as possible variety of the things and creatures that surround them which are necessary for the higher development of the soul. [11] On the other hand, look at those people whose country is richly provided with all imaginable varieties, and you will discover that they have developed. If not in the sphere of the deepest inner life of the soul and spirit, then nevertheless in the sphere of the outer mind, reason and imagination, which man needs if he wants to pass over to a higher development of the inner life of the soul and spirit. For if you want to climb a mountain for the beautiful view, there firstly has to be a mountain, and when there is one, then while climbing you should not be satisfied with the half height of the mountain – although it will already give you a very wide view – but moreover make the effort to also climb the highest tops in order to enjoy the full view from there. [12] So also, once men whose reason, mind and imagination are greatly developed, should not be satisfied with this half height of life, but make the effort to reach its full height. [13] You will understand what I want to tell you with this. And here you have a second reason why God has provided this Earth with such great variety of all things, creatures and phenomena, of which you up till now, with all your Alexandrian development, hardly know the smallest stroke of the little alpha.” (THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN Book 23, Chap. 2. The most important reasons for the variety in the creation on Earth) * "[1] There is however still a third reason which is already known by all My disciples, and you also will come to know this more precisely in the future than it can be explained to you now, for your inner reason would not be able to grasp this. But as an indication, I can tell you this for now: that everything, and still more, that the Earth contains, from its center up to far above the highest region of the air, is soul substance. But that substance stands for a certain time until it is liberated in very different conditions of judgment, from hard to soft. And because of that, it becomes, for the physical eye as well as for the feeling of man in this world, visible and tangible, as completely dead matter, harder or tender. To these belong firstly all kinds of stones, minerals, different soils, water, air and every still unbound matter in it. [2] Then there is the whole kingdom of the plants, in the water and on the ground, together with its transition to the animal kingdom. In that kingdom, the judgment is already milder, and the soul substance stands already more in the stage of a certain liberation compared to its former hard condition of judgment. The soul substance that was formerly as if chaotically mixed together is now, for the sake of the development of intelligence, sorted and formed as independent entities, and so you can see a great variety in this second kingdom. [3] While the soul substance had to go through a greater sorting in the second kingdom because of its special development of intelligence, it must be brought to an ever greater unification of separate intelligences in the third kingdom of the animals – which has a much greater diversity – in order to come to a clearer and freer individual intelligence. That is why in that animal kingdom numberless soul substance particles of all kinds of different small animals combine to one bigger animal soul, for example that of a bigger worm or an insect. [4] Once they have lost their material casing in which they were closed up, numberless different kinds of insects unify again to an animal soul of a bigger and more perfected kind. And this continues up to the big and perfected animals, which are partly wild and are later partly gentle – and only after the last unification of those animal souls will arise the human souls who are provided with all possible intelligent abilities. [5] When man is born in this world and still has to carry a body for the sake of his complete liberation, then it is extremely wisely arranged by God that he as a complete soul cannot remember all the necessary former conditions in separate forms of existence that he as transition had to go through. He can remember them just as little as your eye can see and distinguish the little separate drops of the sea. For if this would be given to a human soul, he would not be able to bear the unification of so endlessly different particles of soul substance and intelligence, but would try to dissolve himself as soon as possible, just like a drop of water dissolves itself on a red-hot iron. [6] In order to preserve the soul of man, every remembrance of former forms of existence must be completely taken away by the arrangement of the body that encloses him, until the time that he becomes innerly completely one with his spirit of love from God. Because that spirit is as the glue by which all those endless different soul particles of intelligence are solidly unified with each other as an eternal indestructible complete being. Then they will shine through, recognize and understand each other in all clearness, and they will glorify and praise God’s love, wisdom and might as a perfected being that is similar to God.” (3. The substance of the soul and his gradual liberation from matter - THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN Book 23) 11. Here Enoch, too, moved closer and said, deeply moved: “O You exceedingly good, holy, most loving Father! It is true, my spirit seeks light within on the obstacles mentioned by You, reflecting on the constantly ruminating monster Nature; but there I can nowhere find an answer.
12. "For although I now see quite clearly that everything exists only through obstacles and therefrom resulting limitations, I can still not see why, for the sake of existing, almost everything should meet in deadly combat. 13. "Why the constant friction, destruction and annihilation? 14. "If thereby something new emerges, it must nevertheless be again destroyed to be followed by something else of its kind. 15. "Behold, there is the empty spot in my heart which is still completely without light. 16. "O Father, light it up with Your grace, love and mercy; Your holy will be done. Amen." 17. And the high Abedam opened His mouth and said to Enoch: ''Yes, you say it and so it is, for everything passes and blows by with the velocity of a gale; and rarely does anything last its full lifespan in full vigor but is only too often swept away by the destructive current, submerged, smashed against the rocks and, finally, swallowed up by the great vortex into the bottomless abyss of destruction. 18. ''You also think: 'There is not a moment which would not constantly consume you and everything around you belonging to you, - not a moment where you are, indeed obviously have to be, a destroyer. 19. "'The most harmless, innocent step of a happy wanderer maybe blots out the life of more than a thousand poor little worms. 20. "How often has my heel shattered a laboriously built dwelling of ants thus stamping a small world into a humiliating grave. 21. "How often have the finest fruits, displayed like a band of light in the sky, hanging from the majestic tree in the light of the sun, been crushed by my teeth. How many of the most glorious little flowers have been crushed by my feet, - and yet they come again. Other ants build another house laboriously, but never ever those for whom my step has prepared an eternal grave! Where, where did they go? 22. "A gentle breeze moves through the leaves of the tree. They move as though lively and gay; yet in the midst of this joy hundreds fall from the branches. 23. "Where to, where to?, I ask. No answer is given me by the fallen; for already a vortex of destruction has swallowed them!' 24. ''You also say: 'It is not the great suffering of things, not the floods hollowing out the rocks, not the great earthquakes by which mountains are reduced to dust that move me, but my own heart undermines me with the all-devastating force hidden everywhere in the nature of things and which calls nothing into existence save that which would again destroy itself or what is around it.' 25. "And harboring such thoughts you reel about, full of fear, and heaven and earth around you, and you call out in this your fear: 26. ''No matter how I look around, I can see nothing anywhere in the nature of things but a self-destructive monster swallowing everything and then chewing the cud!' 27. "It is true, I cannot refute it and say: 'Enoch, you wrong Me with your thoughts,' for it looks so to the eye and the intellect; but behold, it is different with the heart! 28. "What are the things? - 'They are intervals of My great thoughts. It is My own living will that opposes them. Only through this obstacle do they make their visible appearance. 29. "Yet when My love is coupled with My will, it is said: 'Oh do not put limits to the great flight of Your freest thoughts, but allow them to again float freely in the great orbits of Your eternal life in the perfect awareness of their living strength out of You.' 30. "Behold, having mitigated the obstacle of My will, I then give again free rein to My thoughts and you see the things perish; however, they do not cease to exist but only return to the fundamental existence, to the true, free, indestructible existence. 31. "Then, out of many small thoughts I again create a great, living, free one, which must then resemble Me, when it again becomes what it was originally in and out of Me. 32. "Therefore, do no longer worry about the outward transitoriness, but remember: Everything which ceases to exist always enters into another, more perfect, existence, right up to man, and from there again back to Me. 33. “Thus, nothing is lost forever, not even your slightest thoughts. 34. "So comprehend this well all of you, and be always of good cheer in Me. Amen." (HHG vol. 2, chap.124 ) 7. "Behold, you are worried by the transitoriness of the created things so that you ask yourself continually and broodingly: 'What will become of the body when once I, spirit and soul, have to shed it? 8. "Why may and can the body not be enhanced, glorified, and through and through remain actively and permanently forever united with the spirit?' 9. “The sudden destruction of the mountain, reminding you even more of the transitoriness of things, has confirmed you in this your old worrying question and you tremble even more when you look at the spot where only two mornings ago Adam had the prophetic thought that before the very mountain where he, as the first man of the earth, was sighing, mourning and weeping, one day also the last man of the earth would be mourning and perishing. 10. "However, since I am surely a better prophet in the great fullness of all My infinite wisdom than the then in vain and quite foolishly mourning Adam, I tell you, firstly, that the erstwhile prophecy of Adam was completely empty, for which reason mainly I now put an end to this fateful mountain and, thus, also to the even more fateful prediction of Adam. 11. "As concerns the questions of your heart, I tell you, secondly, that they are even much emptier than Adam's prediction. 12. "How can you ever even dream of a transitoriness of things? 13. "Do you perchance believe that a thing perishes as soon as it steps out of the utterly deceptive sight of your physical eyes? 14.”O you feeble-minded thinker and seer! Are not all things nothing else but My thoughts fixed by love, 15. "And the spirits released ideas of My love, wherefore they all have a free will and a free, in itself segregated life? 16. "If, then, I release again a fixed thought, say, has it really perished once I have liberated it from the clinging bonds of love so that it again ascends to the great circle of My spirits, who like formed flames of fire fill all of infinity? 17. "Oh, I tell you: Even the first tiny moss plant which sprouted from the first ocean cliff of the earth still exists and lives on in this My great sphere, and the earth's last one will once meet in brotherly spirit this its living little primordial great-grandfather! 18. “Thus also this mountain was only liberated but not destroyed, -- 19. "And how much less will this body of your spirit once be! 20. "However, as it is now it cannot continue to exist for long; but it will be gradually returned to the perfected spirit cleansed, if no longer in this form, yet as an eternally indestructible spiritual garment. 21. "Therefore, no one should abuse and sinfully misuse his body; for whoever does this, will once have to walk about also with torn clothes in the spirit. 22. “Thus there is no transitoriness of things, but certainly a liberation of the same. 23. "All this do understand well and set your mind at rest. Amen." (HHG vol. 2, chap. 132) |
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