Chapter 17
The next morning, at sunrise, Jehovih came again, speaking through Brahma, saying:
As I prepared a way for My voice, be wise in laboring to show this light to all peoples. Yet do not take sorrow to your souls for the latest born, Hog (who cannot see this light); for he is also in My keeping, and his wisdom shall be the glory of the earth.
For is not all fact interpreted by each and every man from the light of his own standing place? In which, error comes into the world by the darkness of men, in not perceiving rightly the things I have created. Behold, one man sees the forest with reference to its value in logs; another for splints for mats; another for shade to lie in; another for its solitude; and they all see by what dwells in them, but they see through their own particular windows.
Consider, then, the injustice of the man who says: You shall see as I see; hear as I hear; or who says: I have proven this to be true, and that to be untrue; or who says: Behold, we are many witnesses, and we attest.
While Jehovih was speaking so, His angel appeared and stood in the doorway of the hut, and all except Hog looked and saw the angel, and witnessed the color of the angel’s hair and eyes, and the clothes he wore. And they pointed, saying in a whisper: Behold, an angel of heaven!
Then Jehovih spoke, illustrating, saying: While no one has yet spoken, let one at a time privately describe to Hog the appearance of My angel in the doorway.
Accordingly, they all, except Brahma, told Hog all that pertained to the angel, and their accounts accorded with one another. And Jehovih said: Speak, My Son, Hog. Hog said:
To whom shall I speak? For, whether You are my very father; or, in truth, the Creator, I do not know. God said: Who do you say the Creator is? Hog said: Even as the wind; the great void; without person, shape, or sense.
God said to him: For which reason I say to you, because of the unbelief of your father and your mother, while you were in your mother’s womb, you are as you are. This they have attested to you thousands of times since you were weaned. And they have also attested to you as often, that during the bringing forth of your brothers, they were in the fullness of faith in Jehovih (Ormazd).
You were born of the earth, and can only see with earthly eyes, hear only with earthly ears, and can reason only with earthly reason. Hog said: Then in truth I shall go down to earth and there shall be no more of me; but these, my sweet brothers, and this Goddess and this God, my very father and mother, shall inherit everlasting life?
God said: I would place two eggs before you, with the birds within them nearly hatched; now with one you shall open the shell a little, and the young bird sees out, but the other you leave closed. Would you say one bird will have much advantage over the other when they are hatched? Or, that one shall not live, because, in fact, it did not see through the shell? Such, then, is your way to everlasting life. Of your darkness I will make light that will reach millions. Your sacrifice is the sacrifice of a very God among Gods.
Hog said: Because of your great wisdom, I fear to speak in your presence. But your words come out of the mouth of him who is the sweetest and holiest of created beings. Therefore I take courage in my argument.
Now, behold, they have all described the angel in the door; and their descriptions are alike in all particulars. And the wisdom of your words goes to the bottom of things, not like the words of man, but faultlessly. You have made me see that I am bound as if with iron hoops, and must go my way all my days. I do not complain against this; for I perceive it is not within my judgment to know even myself, as to what is good for me or not good for me. However, you have shown me this: I was molded as I am; I am as I am. If I have faults, they are not my faults. Neither are they my father’s nor my mother’s; for the cause of their unbelief at that time did not lie with themselves, but with you.
God said: Vede shall also write down your words; the glory and the wisdom of the earth shall come out of your mouth. The manner of my edifice shall be shown to the inhabitants of the earth. You have seen the king’s temple and how he builds it. For the fine posts he sends his best hewers into the forest, and they choose the straightest and strongest trees, and fall them and hew them, and polish and engrave them, and the posts are set up in the front as strength and ornament. But for the walls of the temple, the king does not call for the best hewers, but the choppers, and they also go into the forest to fetch logs, not the straightest and handsomest, but whatever their axes come upon. And their timbers are put in the walls with mortar and withes. And the temple is completed to the king’s will.
Jehovih said: My heavenly edifice is like this also; I do not send winter to please one man, nor summer; nor the rain. I consider in what way I shall induce men to raise up one another and to be considerate. Thus through Me: Your father, mother, brothers, and all Faithists that come after these, My doctrines, shall learn to consider the unbelief of mortals, and the impossibility of one man seeing through another man’s eyes.
For as I have raised you up in a house of love for one another, so will I show the wisdom of disbelief, and its necessity on the earth.
The foremost of all lessons is that all men shall have liberty; and no man’s judgment shall be binding on another’s; for all do not see alike, nor can they understand alike.
So you shall be as considerate to those who do not see My light, or My Person, as you are to those who are born in su’is; for they are of the same flesh and blood, and they have their spirits from the same Creator.
For in the evidence of the past and present it is before you, that men endeavor to enforce their doctrines by saying: BEHOLD THE WORD OF ORMAZD! HE HAS SPOKEN THUS! AND I AM HIS PRIEST! BOW DOWN YOUR HEADS!
Instead, man shall not bow down, but hold up his head and rejoice. Those who seek to enforce Me are My enemies.
Nor have I said of this man or that: Hear him, for he is Truth. || Shall the Creator make one greater than Himself, and thus cut Himself off? And yet the kings and priests of this day assume to be Truth in Ihua’s (God’s) name. And the mothers and fathers of many have become discouraged because of their great hardships; and they bring forth heirs who have eyes but do not see, ears but do not hear.
God said: In the days of Zarathustra, I came to deliver those who had faith but were in bondage; today I come to teach men how to bring forth heirs with eyes to see spiritual things, and with ears to hear them, and with liberty to all men.
And I come to prove three worlds to men. First, the earth and its fullness; second, the intermediate world of spirits, where all shall sojourn for a season; and third, the Nirvanian worlds beyond Chinvat, where, for the pure and wise, unending paradise awaits.