By Sola Adeyegbe
The parable of the prodigal son
The parable of the prodigal son can be summarized as follows: A certain man had two sons. The younger of them asked his father for his inheritance. The father granted his request and afterwards, this son travelled to a distant country where he wasted all of his belongings in riotous living.
Soon, he was in abject poverty and in order to survive, took on the job of looking after pigs! After much suffering, he regretfully came to his senses and decided to go back to his father. On seeing his father, he confessed that he has sinned and is no more worthy to be called a son. But the father had compassion and joyfully took him back.
In the light of the Grail Message, this Parable of Jesus the Son of God tells us about the origin of man, his purpose on earth, his failure in this regard and the true path to the forgiveness of sins. It speaks also and most importantly of the ever watchful Love of the Almighty Father.
The prodigal son in this parable represents mankind. Man has his origin in the part of the Kingdom of Heaven called Paradise (this can be likened to the father’s house in the parable).
There he starts as an unconscious spirit seed. This unconscious spirit seed through the granting of its wish to develop is permitted to leave Paradise for the earth. He is thereby given the opportunity to learn the Laws of Creation and experience same through living and working in the lower parts of Creation which acts like a school.
The young man’s journey to a distant country in the parable can therefore be likened to the journey of man from the Heavenly Paradise where he has his origin to the earthly school where he is meant to mature and subsequently go back home to Paradise as a fully matured human spirit.
The Grail Message says that “From there it will consciously work, helping and furthering, in the part-planes below, this being the highest task of every mature human spirit.”
However, what happens most of the time is that the time granted for this necessary schooling is frittered away in vanity, immorality and running after earthly things such as money, fame, power and position.
In the Parable, this was referred to as the riotous living of the prodigal son, tantamount to abandoning the purpose of gaining useful experiences that will mature him as mentioned earlier. The result of such neglect is that man becomes dense sometimes falling below the level of animals.
He also reaps unhappiness, lack of fulfillment and lack of contentment like the poverty and degradation suffered by the prodigal son in the parable.
What can bring fulfillment to the inner longing of man is the recognition of God in His Creation, His Word and His Laws. Man has the duty while on earth to absorb the Holy Word and live accordingly.
Through obedience to the Laws of God, man brings purity to his thoughts, words and deeds and is given the strength to overcome temptations. His way of life will be a joy to himself and others who like him are schooling on earth. His steadfastness will in time bring him that maturity which will naturally lead him back to Paradise. This process sums up the very purpose of life on earth!
Where however one has gone astray, repentance i.e. retracing one’s step, embracing the Word of God and living accordingly is the way out.
In the parable, the picture we see is that the prodigal son came to himself and proposed in his heart to go back to his father. It was only after this repentance that the prodigal son’s journey back home to his father began.The parable shows that subsequently, the father completely forgave the repentant son.
Repentance is therefore shown as the way to obtaining the forgiveness of sins. It is therefore incorrect as it is being suggested in many quarters that the guilt of men can be unjustly heaped on the Son of God and forgiveness obtained at a moment’s notice!
Just as in the parable where the decision of the prodigal son to turn back from his evil ways eventually led him back to his father’s house, so it will be for us if we reconsider our ways, become truly repentant and happily adjust ourselves to God’s Laws. We will be helped onto the path that leads back to the Kingdom of Heaven from where we came to the earth.
This time however, we will go back fully matured to participate in the joyful activity of other blessed human spirits who already have Paradise as their home.
Concerning this, the Message says: “Strive for the ability to enter the Spiritual Realm as fully matured spirits, you earthmen! You will then be united with those who could develop in the Spiritual without having to plunge into the World of Matter first. You will then be no less strong than these, for you have overcome many obstacles, and through requisite exertion you became a flame! There will then be joy over you, as is already indicated in the parable about the prodigal son!”
