Sunsets Into Sunrises
Bishop Martin - The Progress of a Soul in the Beyond
- Chapter 162 -
ABOUT TRUE FAITH AND SPIRITUAL FREEDOM. THE SPIRITUAL AWAKENING OF THE SAGE.
The sage now does as suggested by Martin and throws away the band and the staff. Then Peter walks up to him and says:
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(Peter): "So it is true. You did what brother Martin asked of you in the name of all of us, and this has now made you our new brother. Therefore, it is only fair if we comply with your request and tell you who we are and whence we came.
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It is easy enough to tell you with words what you want to know, but it would not be of much use to you if we did. For you have to believe firmly and without the least doubt in what I tell you. If you lack this faith, whatever I may tell you would be quite useless to you.
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You are now saying to yourself, 'If proofs will accompany these words, I will and can believe everything!' However, here I must point out to you that in such a case, that would not be faith, but rather pure knowledge, which would benefit your inner being little, or not at all.
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A knowledge based on proofs is no longer a free knowledge, but a knowledge under compulsion. It does not liberate a spirit, but only imprisons it with each proof that is provided for a certain teaching.
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The only true faith is the one that is like a voluntary obedience of the heart, where the latter does not ask why, how, when, or by what means! Only such a faith will liberate the spirit, because it is a free, uninhibited acceptance of that which a messenger from heaven has told you, whose authority can only be checked by the love of your heart.
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If you feel love for the messenger, accept him; if not, let him go. The messenger has the same kind of instruction from God, Who said, and still does: 'Where you will be received, there remain; but where you will not be received, shake the dust off your feet and continue on your way.'
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You can see from this that both - the one who is to receive the message, as well as the messenger himself - must be quite free! The proposition must be free, and so must be its acceptance! If more is demanded, there is no longer any freedom, but only compulsion, which cannot liberate a spirit.
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It would be easy, indeed, for God, the Eternal Lord, should He wish it, to teach His mankind by irrefutable proofs that He is, and how and why. He would simply have to place men under compulsion, and then they would be quite incapable of assuming or thinking anything else, because - as is the case with animals - their hearts would be under compulsion. However, the Lord wants completely free men, not robots! And, consequently, their hearts must be free, particularly where the acceptance of the Lord's teaching is concerned. Otherwise, their spirit could never gain freedom.
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As long as your mind demands a proof in order to accept a teaching or revelation, your spirit is like a prisoner in a dark cell. Being hungry and thirsty, the prisoner clamors for food, which comes to him through proofs like meager crumbs of bread. These, however, will never provide him with the strength he would need to free himself from his shackles.
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But if the intellect of the heart accepts a teaching freely without proofs, the heart reveals its uninhibited strength, which passes into the spirit and liberates it. When the spirit is free, everything else in man is free: love, light, and vision. No proofs for truth are required, for the free spirit itself stands for the clearest and most complete truth.
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Now ask your heart whether you can believe unconditionally what I tell you. Then I will reveal to you what you want to know. If you cannot do that, my words would be futile, for we have not come to bring judgment, but only to liberate you from the hard yoke of your old servitude."
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(Says the sage): "Sublime friend, you are on a higher level than I. Therefore, speak, and I shall believe you freely, because I want to believe you."