NEUOFFENBARUNG25 March 1841 (continued)
[MEr.01_013,01] You have heard that the rags of the prodigal son were scattered by the winds like chaff, and that those which remained were taken off him and burnt. Do you know what is meant by these rags?
[MEr.01_013,02] They mean the former universal man on our screen, who has dwindled away. For in winning each individual human being, the noble element that proceeds from Me, or My prodigal son, is won back. The rags, or the primal evil itself, will be cast into the fire from which they originally came. This is the fire in the Godhead from which all things have their material existence.
[MEr.01_013,03] Whoever hangs upon the world and clings to matter therefore clings to the rags of the prodigal son. As all matter shows you already its great affinity with fire, so it is with the rags on the prodigal son's loins.
[MEr.01_013,04] This is how it will happen. So that God may again be a free God in whom no matter stirs, the fire, or what is akin to wrath, will have to return to the place from which it came as what it is. It will happen just as when you have a hardening somewhere in your body and apply hot poultices to soften it again. My eternal fire will likewise take hold of this hardened primal evil in its entirety, to assimilate it again to its own nature.
[MEr.01_013,05] You still have a question about whether the beings meant by the rags will have a continuing consciousness of themselves. I tell you that the question almost answers itself. You cannot possibly suppose that there could be any point in the Godhead that is unconscious of itself.
[MEr.01_013,06] That question thus resolves itself. Whether this self-consciousness is a suffering one is another question. To understand it rightly you must first grasp that every effort to find oneself necessarily entails a certain suffering. Everything then depends on whether this suffering is painful or beneficial.
[MEr.01_013,07] When the suffering consists in a being continually taking hold of itself within itself and striving through this act to form itself continually into a unity, it is highly beneficial suffering, and the feeling that arises from the clearest self-consciousness is one of the greatest blessedness.
[MEr.01_013,08] But if the suffering, or a being's conscious feeling of itself, tears and destroys it inwardly, it is exceedingly painful. You can gather this very easily from nature if you have ever observed an inflammatory illness, which consists in certain parts of the body beginning to expand more and more. The more violent the process becomes, the more painful it is. It follows that the self-conscious state of the primal evil akin to fire must also be one of exceedingly painful suffering.
[MEr.01_013,09] You may now think that the Godhead itself must therefore suffer continually and exceedingly in the aspect of its wrath. That is not so. It is just as when food is cooked down in your stomach. The little shells of the food you have taken in burst there, driven by the stomach's fire. But ask yourselves whether, in the natural state, this dreadful process of destruction in the fire of your stomach has ever hurt you.
[MEr.01_013,10] Since I have led you so far, I shall now give you a hint never spoken before. If you would see the ultimate cause of this condition of all worldly, material primal evil, look into your stomach and see what happens to the food it has taken in, how and why. Then you will see a great stretch of My ways and what is to come to pass. The time, however, is not written in your stomach. Let it suffice that I have shown you the purpose.
[MEr.01_013,11] See now, dear children. This is all that can be given you, all that you can bear. You need know no more. Take heed of it point by point, from the first hour given you to the last. Travel by this way through the whole Earth within yourselves, and in this way find the prodigal son within you.
[MEr.01_013,12] Do what he did and still does in every individual sinner who seeks My kingdom. In the inner chamber of your spirit, on the screen of your worldly desires, let what you last saw happen to the universal man on the screen shown you happen to the world. In each of you the prodigal son will then be found again and stand in the condition I showed you, when another man took the place of the former one who had dwindled to a point.
[MEr.01_013,13] Only then, as those who have been found again, will you see and recognise in yourselves, in the brightest light, the great truth of what was given you in these twelve hours.
[MEr.01_013,14] For, as was said before, all people make up one human being, as one makes up all. Seek all this evil in yourselves. When you have found it and driven it out of you with My powerful help, I, your holy Father, who have already come more than halfway to meet you, shall come all the way to you. I shall free you entirely from your rags and receive you into the great Father's house of My eternal love.
[MEr.01_013,15] Finally I draw your attention only to this. By now I have come to meet many other prodigal sons as well as you.
[MEr.01_013,16] Attend above all to My coming within yourselves and concern yourselves less with the general coming. What you feel for the whole, bring before Me prayerfully in your hearts. Let everything else be, for the great when, how and why are safely kept in the best of hands. Amen. This I say, your great, holy, most loving Father. Amen.