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The importance of knowing evil It is difficult to fight an enemy that you see and know; how much more difficult would it be to fight an enemy that you neither see nor know? That is why it is necessary to explore such an enemy, so that you know how to deal with him in order to be victorious in the forthcoming battle. That is why it is of great importance for the eternal life of the spirit to know Heaven and Hell thoroughly. It is not the purpose of angelic spirits and of human beings to cleanse and care for Heaven, but only that which was, from time immemorial, unclean. That is why it is much more important to know the place of filth more thoroughly than the place of cleanliness. Only the place of filth must be cleansed; when it is clean, Heaven will make its appearance on its own. It would be absolutely foolish if you were to ask someone constantly to point out and praise only his good characteristics, and never to think about his bad characteristics, nor to exercise self‑criticism. Goodness does not require praise, because it stands out by itself. But it is absolutely necessary that every human being go after his evil thoughts and desires, and work to eliminate them.[1] It is much better if you say, “Lord, be lenient and merciful with me, a miserable sinner!” than to say, “Lord, I thank Thee that I am not like other people, such as the customs officials and all the other sinners!” Judge for yourself which is the more important of the two: to know the ground you walk on, or to know the firmament on which no one has yet hurt himself. The ground carries us; therefore you must know how firm it is, whether there be chasms, and how you may avoid them. Whosoever wants to avoid evil must know it first; otherwise, he remains an immature child. That is why it is very important to explore evil thoroughly, so that each may easily recognize it within himself.
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4. HEAVEN AND HELL
[1] Says hereupon Philopold: “Lord, I and certainly we all thank You from the bottom of our hearts for this fantastic and most superb clarification about the teaching of the old sages. Yes, now the matter it is evident and clear after sounding like total nonsense before. Sure enough I shall understand and perceive all this only fully when I shall be free of all elements of matter. [2] But for now it is enough to see how one can be according to the fullest truth totally outside the notions of time and space while at the same time being within time and space. There is only one more thing I would like to learn from You, namely, the whereabouts of both heaven and the loathsome hell, of which I have also heard and read much. It says: These will ascend to heaven, and those will be cast down into hell. Where and what is the ‘above’, and where and what the extremely deplorable ‘below’?” [3] Says the Lord: “Look, on this chair on which you are sitting, heaven and hell can be firmly side by side here on earth. Yet in the realm of spirit they are separated by an immense chasm. – And furthermore: [4] Here, where I am now with you, is the uppermost heaven, meaning ‘above’, and here also the deepest and worst hell, meaning ‘below’. [5] The material whereabouts do not matter, but only the spiritual which, as you have seen, have nothing at all in common with the material whereabouts, for in the realm of spirit only the inner state of life determines the true and genuine distance. There the material-spatial cannot ever be of any significance. To make this even more comprehensible for you, I will give you a few examples. [6] Imagine two people sitting here on one and the same chair. One is a pious sage whose bright spirit, full of light, is initiated into very many secrets about the effects of the divine forces in nature. The other is a hardened criminal who rests his limbs on the same chair or on the same bench and let’s himself be served, like an honest man, with wine and bread to restore his strength, so that he can all the more easily perpetrate some evil deed once he is again outdoors. How closely together the two men are in a material-spatial sense and how infinitely far apart in spirit! [7] On the other hand, assuming that our sage were sitting with us here on this bench and at the same time, somewhere a thousand leagues from here, another, these two like sages would be very far apart materially-spatially, yet in the realm of spirit they would nevertheless be very close together, as is literally the case in My Kingdom. Greed, the origin of matter
[1] (The Lord:) “If you look a little closer at this process, it will truly not be difficult for you, to recognize in all right depth of truth, where the weed on the pure field of life is coming from. [2] Everything which is called world and matter, is something which is wrong and inevitably always opposing the true, spiritual order out of God, since originally it had to be placed as a counter-impulse into the enlivened, well-formed idea, placed outside of God as individual beings, to awaken their free will, and should therefore be seen as the true weed on the only true and spiritual pure field of life. [3] Even if the weed was originally a necessity to establish a complete free, spiritual life, the free created human beings must finally recognize it as such and voluntary remove it, because it is impossible for them to continue to exist together with it. It is a necessary means for a purpose, but can never become one with the purpose itself. [4] The net is also a necessary means to catch fish; but who will submerge it into the water, then pull it up again and instead of the fish, roast it on the fire en enjoy it as food?! Thus the net is only necessary to catch fish; and once you have lifted the fish out of the water and put them into the pantry, one puts the net away and uses the yield achieved by it. [5] Hence the impulse to transgress the commandment must be there; since it is an awakener of the ability to recognize and an awakener of the free will. It fills the soul with desire and joy for as long she quite well recognizes the impulse, but not giving in to it, but keep fighting it with the same free will, which was awaken and enlivened by the very impulse in her, and the free soul uses it then as a means, but not as an in it achieved purpose. [6] The tube is never ever the wine itself, but only the holder to preserve the wine. But who would be so stupid to bite into the tube and damage it because of its attractive smell, since he knows to just open the tube at the right place, to get the pure wine out of the tube?! [7] The weed or the impulse to transgress the law is therefore something subordinated and may never ever become the main objective; whoever makes the subordinated the main objective, resembles a fool, who wants to feed himself with the pots in which the good food is cooked, and throws the food away! Secrets of life, chap 33. THE DARK SIDE OF NATURE RELATIVE TO HUMAN LIFE
21 February 1877 "In My last (preceding) word I defended Myself against the criticism raised by some, or actually by many people, concerning the contradictions they believe to find My visible nature, when they compare them with My everywhere proclaimed words of love, of meekness and of the promised joys. As far as was possible, I have elucidated this dark side for you, explaining also that "it could be otherwise, but it must still be as it really is." Now I still have to carry out an important scrutiny of your own life, where many a person says: "Just look at human life, from birth to grave it is nothing but conflict, suffering, disappointment, with very little love, joy and other promised things, unless man knows how to procure them himself. "What else is life on this earth but a vale of tears where one - not knowing any better - is referred to religious dogmas and other revelations always speaking of another life after death, of reward and recompense for sustained suffering while letting man battle here on earth with every misfortune. Why should I bother about another world beyond, of which I actually know nothing certain and in which I am expected to believe blindly! "Since I see this world surrounding me as so miserable, who guarantees that the future world is not just as contradictory as the real one here where, instead of joys, only physical or spiritual sufferings follow each other and even what is attained with effort does not afford the enjoyment some expected!" "[1] Firstly, let us take a rich speculator as example. Look closer at this eternally insatiable one. What was the goal of his love and will? Only to acquire – although somehow lawful and permissible – the possessions of a whole country and finally of a whole kingdom, in no matter what way. And once he is successful in this, take also several kingdoms or the whole surface of the Earth. Although he will not completely succeed in such plan and he probably will not realize his idea completely, but he nevertheless does not let it go and he secretly thinks: ‘If I only had an army of at least a couple of million invincible soldiers, then I would gather all the gold, silver, and all the noble stones and pearls of the whole world and pile them up.’
[2] Also, many have the following wish: ‘If only the pest could break out in the country that would kill everyone except me, then I would be the natural, universal heir of the whole country. And if then people would come from another country who would dispute my inheritance, the pest would immediately grab and strangle them at the border.’ [3] Look, this is an image of the lowest Hell which you can daily notice among the people of all classes, starting with the simple stallholder to the greatest speculator. What prevents them from realizing such so-called praiseworthy ideas? Only the fatal matter. If we take that away and if we consider then the absolute spirit with the same qualities, then we have the lowest Hell in top condition before us. "[1] John: “After our disciples are well trained in patience and return from their duty in this outer world, usually after the decease of one of their entrusted persons they protected, they must stay near them as long as the natural spiritual condition of a person’s deceased soul lasts here. At the moment of the unmasking or emptying by which each spirit is simply left on his own, they return to the spiritual sun. Only from there they go to a new destiny. But where? This is very easy to guess when one considers that our disciples had sufficient opportunity up till now to practically observe and recognize the breaking of the law, first as disciples spiritually, scientifically and then as spirit protectors.
[2] The fact that after this understanding there is still a third, and after the third a fourth understanding, should be clear to everyone who knows that the goal, that is reached with each evil, brings along certain consequences, and it is only with this goal that the basis or main cause of the evil is recognized. For if one is still not aware of the consequences of sin and completely realizes the cause of sin, then he is still not so free and firm to sufficiently abhor sin. But once he realized that the consequence is the result of an unchangeable law and if he recognized the cause that is behind it, only after that, by his free insight and his fee will, he will entirely become a firm adversary of all the evil. [3] But where must our disciple go to realize this? They must travel through the Hells escorted by mighty and very experienced spirits, and this from the first up to the last or lowest one. In the first and second one we can see the consequences of evil and it is especially in the second one that the cause of evil becomes more and more obvious within the still very visible consequences. Only in the third, lowest Hell they come to know the basis or main cause of all evil. "[1] Many will ask now: ‘How can one think and believe that it is possible for some very inferior life’s power to rebel from the sphere of its awareness against an infinite, absolute perfect life’s power? Because the low life’s power must certainly know and be aware that a minimum of life’s power can never stand against the infinite and that a victory can eternally not be possible.’ Good, I say, this objection does not sound bad but is mostly based on ignorance. In an exceptional case this objection can approximately be mentioned, but since in the pure spiritual kingdom there are no hypotheses and thus also no approximates, but only truths, it can thus also not be worth of an answer.
[2] A spiritual answer is a full truth, but if it (the truth) is not contained in the question, it cannot be answered. The one who asks the question will receive an answer but never a proper direct answer to his question, but only as an indirect truth. This is also the case here. When the answer is there, the mentioned objection will be solved by itself. [3] So whether a lower or as here a very inferior life’s power can rebel or not and if it can be destroyed by the infinite life’s power, will soon be shown from a few small examples. [4] How heavy a mountain is should not be further explained to someone who has carried a few smaller stones. A small mountain consists of what? Of only atomically small parts that stick together through the mutual power of attraction. If we dig from down the mountain upwards, up to the place on which the highest, thus heaviest top rests, then by that we discover well preserved and very strong stony walls. If we only take a small part from these strong stony walls, put it on a steel plate or on a stone and hit it a little with the hammer, this part will become dust. |
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