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Paris Talks
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Pages 64-67
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THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL
November 3rd
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1 |
Paris is becoming very cold, so cold that I shall
soon be obliged to go away, but the warmth of
your love still keeps me here. God willing, I hope to
stay among you yet a little while; bodily cold and heat
cannot affect the spirit, for it is warmed by the fire of
the Love of God. When we understand this, we begin
to understand something of our life in the world to
come.
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2 |
God, in His Bounty, has given us a foretaste here,
has given us certain proofs of the difference that exists
between body, soul and spirit.
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3 |
We see that cold, heat, suffering, etc, only concern
the body, they do not touch the spirit.
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4 |
How often do we see a man, poor, sick, miserably
clad, and with no means of support, yet spiritually
strong. Whatever his body has to suffer, his spirit is
free and well! Again, how often do we see a rich man,
physically strong and healthy, but with a soul sick unto
death.
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5 |
It is quite apparent to the seeing mind that a man's
spirit is something very different from his physical
body.
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6 |
The spirit is changeless, indestructible. The progress
and development of the soul, the joy and sorrow of the
soul, are independent of the physical body.
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7 |
If we are caused joy or pain by a friend, if a love
prove true or false, it is the soul that is affected. If our
dear ones are far from us--it is the soul that grieves,
and the grief or trouble of the soul may react on the
body.
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8 |
Thus, when the spirit is fed with holy virtues, then is
the body joyous; if the soul falls into sin, the body is in
torment!
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9 |
When we find truth, constancy, fidelity, and love,
we are happy; but if we meet with lying, faithlessness,
and deceit, we are miserable.
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10 |
These are all things pertaining to the soul, and are
not bodily ills. Thus, it is apparent that the soul, even
as the body, has its own individuality. But if the body
undergoes a change, the spirit need not be touched.
When you break a glass on which the sun shines, the
glass is broken, but the sun still shines! If a cage containing
a bird is destroyed, the bird is unharmed! If a
lamp is broken, the flame can still burn bright!
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11 |
The same thing applies to the spirit of man. Though
death destroy his body, it has no power over his
spirit--this is eternal, everlasting, both birthless and
deathless.
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12 |
As to the soul of man after death, it remains in the
degree of purity to which it has evolved during life in
the physical body, and after it is freed from the body it
remains plunged in the ocean of God's Mercy.
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13 |
From the moment the soul leaves the body and
arrives in the Heavenly World, its evolution is spiritual,
and that evolution is: The approaching unto God.
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14 |
In the physical creation, evolution is from one
degree of perfection to another. The mineral passes
with its mineral perfections to the vegetable; the
vegetable, with its perfections, passes to the animal
world, and so on to that of humanity. This world is
full of seeming contradictions; in each of these kingdoms
(mineral, vegetable and animal) life exists in its
degree; though when compared to the life in a man,
the earth appears to be dead, yet she, too, lives and has
a life of her own. In this world things live and die, and
live again in other forms of life, but in the world of
the spirit it is quite otherwise.
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15 |
The soul does not evolve from degree to degree as a
law--it only evolves nearer to God, by the Mercy and
Bounty of God.
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16 |
It is my earnest prayer that we may all be in the
Kingdom of God, and near Him.
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