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High tide and low tide
24th October 1840, Saturday, evening from 3/4 6 p.m. to 9 a.m.
Writers: K.G.L. – L. – D. – Andr. and Ans. H. – The Lord communicated to us through His servant J. L. the following from His treasury:
[1] There are many opinions about the phenomenon of the regular rising and falling of the sea. But, as with everything else, so also with this phenomenon it is the case that all up to now, known opinions and so-called "hypotheses" with regard to the explanation of this phenomenon relate to the truth, like a blind marksman to the set target, who goes there in his night on the wide field, where some target is set. He goes on and on upon the plain and looks for the target to where he could shoot his arrows. And see, when he has come close to the target, he turns away from it and sends his arrows into the blue.
[2] And if another shooter, who is also blind, have had such luck to have, in a certain way, as you say, accidentally shot an arrow into the center, this would, however, be of no use to him, since he is blind and therefore cannot know where his arrow has flown to; and if he did know, what good would it do him, since he cannot see the center himself – especially if the target, as here in this task, is set so high that he cannot even reach it with his hands to feel whether his arrow is in the center.
[3] And when he then eloquently preaches to a whole blind crowd of how exactly he hit the target, some who are even more blind than he, will begin to wonder with extraordinary approval that he hit the target with such certainty , and will say: "That would have been impossible for all of us mortals, since we are all blind". But he will respond magnanimously: "Yes, I succeeded!"
[4] But the less blind, of course, will gradually begin to murmur in their ears and will say: "Isn't the shooter also blind? Where did he get this sure shot? Couldn't he have hit a nearby tree just as well as the intended target?
[5] A person with sight, also be present during this operation, would say: “Listen, friends! I have healthy eyes and see equally well up close and in the distance." But the blind would reply to him:" What does it matter to us if you see when we are blind? And so we can no more believe you than the blind man, since we really cannot convince ourselves whether you can see." But the seer would then say: "If you do not see either, I can make you understand that I see, in the following way: Let any of you make any movement with his hand, with his foot or with his head, and when I tell you how you have moved, believe me that I can see." And the blind said to him:" If you could, we would like to believe that you can see and us too could say where the arrow of this archer, who are as blind as us, has flown." The sighted would do that too. But then he would say: "Look, the archer was leaning against the target with his back instead of against a tree when he fired the arrow, for which reason the arrow could not possibly reach the target."
[6] Now see what would come of it now? Do you think the blind would believe him? Yes, I say, you would believe it insofar as you could grab it with your hands. But since the archer would rebel mightily for his honor, the more blind would stick to the archer's eloquence, and the others would always be in a flood and ebb-like wavering in their faith and would say: "Yes, it is true, he probably told us our movements correctly, but who can guarantee that he also correctly tells us other things, in which we cannot convince ourselves whether it is as he tells us?"
[7] Now see, from this little parable you will see how difficult it is to preach to the blind world, and conversely, how difficult it is also for the blind world to grasp and understand the truth preached as such.
[8] See, all of you are also still blind believers – and I alone am the One who sees! If I therefore open things up for you and show you the false conclusions of the worldly archer, then believe that I certainly tell you the purest truth at all times and also give you a very good portion of eye ointment in each of My revelations, by means of which you also get your eyesight again provided that you use the ointment diligently and stick to the ebb rather than the flow.
[9] For the high tide is a symbol of pride – but the low tide of humility! Or in other words: The flood is a symbol of the abundance, the wealth and the restlessness connected with it – but the low tide of the seclusion, the sparseness and the quiet rest.
[10] To the skipper, the high tide is often more desirable than the low tide, if some stormy wind has left him stranded on a sandbank. But this usefulness is not a true usefulness. For it is true that the ship is lifted by the tide and then carried on – but are there not still, as is well known, cliffs before or after the sandbanks? Look, if the ship had not been put into the state of rest on the soft sandbank by the low tide, the storm would have hurled the ship onto a cliff, whereby then everything would have perished. Therefore, you too should choose the ebb-tide rather than the flood-tide as the mirror of your life.
[11] After this little, not incorrect, preliminary consideration I, as the only sighted archer, will take up the bow and send the arrow into the ebb and flow of the tide; and we want to see if I too hit a tree instead of the target.
[12] But if you were to ask a machinist: "Tell me, why is this pin there in your clockwork?" – won't the machine-master immediately know why this pin is here or there? Yes, I say, he will and must know, since otherwise he would not be a master and the work would not be the work of his hands. But if I am the great Master in all things eternal and infinite, then believe Me that I know the ebb and flow well.
[13] Now you will think to yourselves: So I would like to know what the ebb and flow of tide is? But I say: Just be patient, it will come! You do it with your children after all, because you are inclined to give them something, also often when the gift only consists of something very insignificant. But if I give you something important, how should I not make you a little eager for it first?
[14] Now see, everything that expresses any life has a form of breathing peculiar to it. And when this has ceased, then the spirits of life have fled from matter; but this itself then sinks back into the state of indolence, dies and decays and thus passes over into death. For example, if you observe whatever kind of animal, it will and must breathe; for if this act ends, daily experience already teaches you that then death has entered this form. You also say that if someone took their last breath, that they died, and you are right; for with the last breath, natural life comes to an end. But as soon as the physical life ends in it’s center, all vegetative life in a body immediately ends with the main life.
[15] So what is breathing and what is it for? See, every being forms either a positive or a negative polarity. But just as every polarity has a need for the opposite polarity and a negative or positive pole cannot arise or exist by itself, but only one through the other, see, so is natural life! Your life also consists of a negative pole, to which it is given to receive the positive.
[16] But how can this happen? By continuously stimulating the negative pole through respiration, by which stimulation a proportional need for the absorption of the positive is always brought about.
[17] Now see, you have an electric machine, for example. This machine can stand for years on any place and you will not perceive any other phenomena in it than that of it’s form itself. But if someone turns the disk of the machine around, the negative electricity is excited and, as it were, consumed in itself.
[18] But now, through this very consumption of itself, it begins to feel a new need for satisfaction. What can happen now? Although you can almost grasp it with your hands now, I will nevertheless tell you for the sake of order what has and must happen. As hunger cannot satisfy itself, so also the self-consuming pole cannot satisfy itself again – just as if your stomach had become empty, you also cannot satisfy yourself with the emptiness of another stomach, but you will say: "Lord, this negative food does not serve us, we have the need for a positive food!"
[19] See, that's the case here too! And so the positive electricity is a saturation of the negative. Once this saturation has taken place, the saturating success will immediately appear in the conductor.
[20] And so the breathing is what sets your life-electrifying machine in motion, excites the negative polarity and makes your being hungry for the positive polarity. Because with every breath, a constant friction is caused in your body parts. It is through this friction that negative life is stimulated and begins to feel hungry. And depending on the degree of need, the same is saturated with every breath, which saturation consists therein that nitrogen, as the negative pole, takes in oxygen with great eagerness. If this breathing stops, then the negative polarity begins to consume itself, whereby natural life also comes to an end.
[21] Now think, every living being is a "world" or an "earth" in a small way. But as every such being possesses a central life and maintains a vegetative life through the central one as long as the respiration continues, behold, it is the same not only with the earth, but with every world-body! – Of course, you must not think that the earth is an animal because it also breathes periodically; nevertheless, it is organically arranged in it’s inner structures to the extent that it is capable of breathing.
[22] Accordingly, the ebb and flow of the tide is nothing but the result of the earth's constant breathing in and out.