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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.

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!