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Know
yourself
As long as our own life is a mystery
the riddles of the universe will remain a mystery. Cosmology, a description
of existence in its entirety, deals therefore with ourselves and the very
prerequisites for our existence. The motto for this world picture is "Know
yourself, and you know the whole universe".
The
universe is a living being
A central thought in Martinus' view of the universe is that it is living
and thinking. The universe is an organic whole consisting of living beings
all working as one. All living beings together constitute one all embracing
living being. Through religion we come to know this all-embracing living
being by the term "God". The whole of existence, all of life,
is an indivisible unit. Through a law-bound interplay the capacity to
live in perfect harmony with everyone will gradually be developed. We
will eventually attain cosmic consciousness. We will become "one
with life". We will fulfil the laws of life, and love our neighbours
as ourselves.
No
religion, no membership
Martinus Cosmology is not a religion. One cannot become a member of Martinus
Cosmology. Cosmology describes the whole of existence. Everyone and everything
is from the outset a member of this whole. Martinus does not wish to gather
a flock of blindly believing converts around his work. He does not want
us to believe what he has written. He prefers us to find out from our
own personal experiences if what he writes is in accordance with reality.
Martinus does not dictate any particular moral standard. He shows how
life itself inscribes a higher moral standard in our hearts and brains.
Martinus created a spiritual science to point out, by means of analyses,
the basic conditions for the existence of life. The truth is universal
or cosmic.
A
cosmic view of life
In his works Martinus introduces a new view of life, a cosmic view of
life. Our present short physical life on Earth is seen in the context
of cosmic evolution. Life is eternal. In order to understand it we must
see it in an eternal perspective.
From
animal to real human being
From an evolutionary point of view Man is a highly developed animal. This
has long been widely accepted. What is new in the thoughts about evolution
presented by Martinus is that we as individuals personally take part in
the entire evolutionary process. We are transitional beings, partly animal
and partly human being. We are sphinx-beings. Our selfish tendencies stem
from the struggle for existence in the animal kingdom. There they were
necessity, even a virtue. But today this is not the case. Today the innate
animal tendencies threaten the entire existence of mankind. During evolution
selfishness has become an automatic characteristic, which unconsciously
directs our actions towards goals that are primarily for our own benefit.
In our soul a struggle is going on between our previous animal mentality
and our dawning human consciousness. Our cosmic destiny is to become citizens
of the real human kingdom. The basis of life there is unselfishness and
perfect neighbourly love.
We
create our own fate
Why do people experience so many different kinds of fate? Why is there
so much suffering for which we are apparently not to blame? As long as
we are "blind to the fact of eternity" we will not see the more
profound causes of our fate. We are not conscious that our present physical
life is a link in a greater plan - indeed, is a continuation of an eternally
progressing evolutionary process. So we do not see that one present life
is a consequence of our own way of thinking and behaving. In the same
way we see that our thoughts and actions today create a pattern of fate
that we will experience in future lives.
Martinus analyses the eternal structure of life and says that death does
not exist. Around us we see instruments and organisms, not life itself.
The instruments are continuously renewed, built up and broken down. The
source, life itself, goes on eternally.
We have physical instruments and spiritual instruments. We live in two
worlds, a physical one and a spiritual one. We are as yet conscious in
merely the physical. Our fate is therefore a mystery. According to Martinus,
we create our own fate. It is decided by what we think and what we do.
Our fate, the future, lies in our own hands. In our innermost selves there
are dormant powers waiting to be used.
The
purpose of suffering
Have the sufferings of the world any purpose? Yes. According to Martinus
suffering has an important mission. It changes us and gradually creates
in us a capacity for sympathy and humaneness. Suffering is the unavoidable
consequence of practicing the animal kingdom's law of life, every man
for himself. To cause one's fellow beings suffering is an expression of
ignorance of the law of fate: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall
he also reap". We do not know what we are doing. But since we reap
what we sow, we learn to differentiate between good and evil. When we
have attained this, the consequence will be that doing good will be our
only way of manifesting ourselves.
Is
there any justice in life?
It is important to have confidence that justice prevails in life. Society's
judicial system is developing towards greater justice. According to Martinus
the order in the universe itself guarantees the eternal laws of existence
and the presence of justice in all the circumstances and events of life.
As no one can experience anything other than the consequences of his own
actions, no one can suffer unjustly. It is not our so-called enemies who
are the ultimate cause of our sufferings. They are merely instruments
for the returning effects of our own earlier actions, sometimes from previous
lives. The root of all evils is in our innermost selves. According to
Martinus, Man is unknowingly his own worst enemy. As we cannot experience
suffering other than the suffering we have inflicted on others, we can
begin to sense a higher justice behind everything.
Mankind's
common goal for the future
All evolution is based upon universal, cosmic laws. Insight into these
fundamental cosmic laws makes it possible to foresee mankind's common
goal for the future. Just as day and night, summer and winter follow each
other with absolute regularity, so mental light follows mental darkness,
love follows hate. Evolution's cosmic goal for the earth is the creation
of a global kingdom of peace. Evolution results in the realisation of
the united states of the world and the creation of an international judicial
system. In his cosmology Martinus analyses the conditions necessary for
the gradual development of a world state.
Such a world state, however, cannot be created through dictatorship but
only through evolution. With his cosmic
world picture based on logical analyses, Martinus shows that neighbourly
love here on Earth is a consequence of a law-bound order in the universe.
Neighbourly love is a harmonious combination of intelligence and feeling,
a mental condition that is in perfect harmony with love, the basic note
of the universe .
Who was Martinus?
Martinus was a Danish writer.His collected works are entitled "The
Third Testament". His main work is "The Third Testament - Livets
Bog (The Book of Life)". "The Eternal World Picture" (4
volumes) is a supplement to his main work. It contains coloured symbolic
drawings and explanatory texts illustrating and explaining the main
principles of his cosmology. "Logic" is an introduction to "Livets
Bog". He has written about 30 shorter works.
Martinus was born in 1890 in Sindal, a little railway town in the north
of Jutland, Denmark and lived until he was ninety. The background for
Martinus' work was the experience of a profound transformation of consciousness
in March 1921. Martinus writes about this experience in the preface to
"Livets Bog":
"The cosmic baptism of fire
through which I had passed - the closer analysis of which I cannot specify
here - had thus left the fact that entirely new sensory abilities had
been released in me, abilities which enabled me - not in glimpses - but
on the contrary in a permanent state of awake day-consciousness - to apprehend
all the main spiritual forces, invisible causes, eternal world laws, basic
energies and basic principles behind the physical world. The mystery of
existence was therefore no longer a mystery to me. I had become conscious
in the life of the whole universe, and had been initiated into 'the divine
principle of creation' ".
This transformation of consciousness and ensuing new insight became the
starting point for Martinus' work as a writer. He wrote from 1921 until
his death in 1981.
Rolf
Elving (1985) Translated by Mary McGovern
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