M1440
The origin of life force
by Martinus
1. Terrestrial mankind is to some degree derailed
Among present-day human beings there exist many derailments, both sexual
derailments and derailments to do with excessive use of drugs and alcohol. Such derailments will
cause the beings in question in future incarnations to be to some extent mentally retarded or
will lead to congenital, physical defects, which the derailed beings will spend several
incarnations overcoming. Beings such as these, who have come through the darkness of a
derailment, will be so well-equipped with experiences and compassion that once they have
regained their health they will be the very best helpers and guides for those fellow beings who
are in a state of derailment similar to the one that they themselves have come through.
So there is truth in the old saying that "nothing is so bad that it is not good
for something". But that does not mean that I would recommend my fellow beings to become
derailed in the aforementioned areas; it is perfectly possible to achieve the necessary life
experience without going down that road. Of course no terrestrial human being can gain cosmic
consciousness without going through experiences, sometimes unpleasant experiences, that are in
themselves in a way derailments. From a cosmic perspective it is actually the case that
practically the whole of present-day mankind is in a great many areas derailed. And I am
certainly not saying that as a criticism or as an expression of the fact that I am outraged at
the way things are. Terrestrial mankind cannot be any different than it is at this moment, since
it is on its way from an animal state to the state of being a true human being. But it can
change, and it will change.
2. The false experience of life
I use the
term "derailed" in relation to terrestrial mankind's present state in order to denote
that an enormous number of terrestrial human beings have grown away from the way of being that
is absolutely necessary if they want to liberate themselves from the difficulties and sufferings
of daily life. Many actually represent a way of being that causes them to have a false
experience of life. To them life is seen as "evil", which is the greatest illusion
that exists. Life is not intrinsically evil; it is radiant love. But it is based on logic, which
means that it absolutely cannot allow someone to go unpunished if he or she causes other living
beings suffering or pain. "To go unpunished" is, however, not the correct expression
as it can lead people to believe in an "angry" god. What we call "evil" is
not a punishment in the true sense of the word; it is a phenomenon based on the law of cause and
effect. And it is an absolutely necessary phenomenon, as without it no living being would be
able to have consciousness and become a freely creative being capable of becoming a lord of life
and death and a "human being in God's image". All terrestrial human beings are now at
a stage in evolution where they have in the past created a great many causes, the effects of
which are now taking the form of a variety of unhappy fates, and they will continue to do so
into the near future. As a result, the world has ended up as a "vale of tears", as
some believers would call it, or it has "gone to hell", as others would prefer to say.
Both phrases are much more an expression of the mental state of the person than of the world
that they want to describe. If we call the world a "vale of tears" or a
"hell", these expressions can only be descriptions of an absolutely false world
picture, but they can at the same time be characteristics of a more or less diseased ability to
experience life.
3. Human beings' "defective"
instruments
The most important thing for all human beings
is to find the way out of illness, out of suffering and away from the false experience of life.
But how do we leave these things behind? As I have so often written and said, one cannot say
anything about the living being's "I" other than that it is "something that
is". One cannot therefore say that the I is false and is the cause of a false experience of
life. In its essence life is not false, and neither is the entire living universe, which
displays its life force in accordance with eternal laws. Minerals have their particular way of
giving expression to life, even though humans are unable to perceive it. Plants have their
particular way and animals theirs. In the micro- and macrocosmos, with their "particles and
empty space", there also exists a way of giving expression to life, which humans are
beginning to have a vague inkling of. None of this is the expression of falsehood. The only
thing that can be false is human beings' ideas about the world, and this is entirely due to the
fact that the instruments or tools that human beings use are either too undeveloped or too
defective as a result of misuse.
By human beings' "instruments" I do not
mean telescopes, microscopes and other means of technically extending human beings' ability to
sense physically. What I am referring to is the human being's own defective or inadequate tool
for experiencing life – its organism. In saying this, there will be many who think that I am
referring in particular to the human being's physical organism. But I am not, for the human
being's physical organism is really only an organ in a very much larger organism that is not
made up of physical matter and therefore eludes, or is inaccessible to, physical sensory
perception. It is this cosmic organism that cannot at the moment give human beings the true or
perfect experience of life in the universe or the eternal Godhead. Inadequacies or defects in
the human beings' physical organisms are exclusively an effect of an inadequacy or defect in
their cosmic organisms. The road away from the false experience of life and thereby from illness
and suffering, the road towards life or the perfect experience of life can only be established
by creating for oneself a perfect tool with which to experience life. In order to do that one
must be familiar with the laws of creation and know what kinds of materials one is dealing with.
And it has become my task to analyse these things, revealing them to the enquiring researcher,
and to show him or her a world that is not false and a world picture in which so-called evil is
the "unpleasant good", thereby becoming a part of the great final conclusion:
"Everything is very good".
4. The living being's eternal body and its renewable
organs
As well as the organ in the cosmic organism that we know as our
physical body, human beings possess five other cosmic organs or bodies that are also parts of
the cosmic organism. All of these six organs or bodies can be replaced and renewed and therefore
exist in the temporal dimension, that is to say they are subject to the concepts of beginnings
and endings. This, however, does not apply to the living being's cosmic organism in which these
bodies are renewable organs. The cosmic organism is eternal, which is why I also call it in my
analyses the living being's eternal body.
The I or creator with its creative ability
and its eternal body form a triune reality that has no beginning or end, and for this reason all
living beings are eternal beings. But their very experience of life is based on the fact that
"something" that is eternal creates and experiences through "something" that
involves beginnings and ends, and that is nevertheless in essence eternal. This attribute
represents the living being's eternal body, which is an eternal and permanent instrument for the
living being's ability to create and experience, but its six organs – its organ of instinct, its
organ of gravity, its organ of feeling, its organ of intelligence, its organ of intuition and
its organ of memory – are subject to change and thereby to having a beginning and an end, each
end being followed by a new beginning.
The physical part of a living being, its
organ of gravity, is only one of the organs in the being's eternal body, and it is an organ that
can be renewed. This takes place through the process we know as "death". Before the
being once again creates for itself a new physical organ in its eternal body, that is to say a
new physical organism, there is a pause in which its day-consciousness is borne in turn by its
body of feeling, its body of intelligence, its body of intuition and its body of memory, which
means that the being experiences a cycle through the spiritual worlds, which it does so through
the relevant bodies. How much or how little a human being experiences in these spiritual or
ray-formed worlds between two physical incarnations depends on how well developed are its
respective spiritual bodies or organs. As these ray-formed spheres are not the source of painful
experiences and suffering, human beings enter a world of light when they, as we say,
"die". It cannot be stressed enough that there is no reason to be afraid of death. In
the case of certain people the initial transition can be a little difficult if they are filled
with dark thoughts, anxiety or a bad conscience. But these are the very things that human beings
should seek to overcome while they are experiencing through their physical organism. The reason
why they incarnate in physical matter is to learn how to overcome resistance, initially by using
violence and force – qualities that belong to the primitive stages – and then by using insight
and neighbourly love. It is these qualities that will lead the being out of the false experience
of life.
5. The experience of "I" and
"it"
Since the physical body is an organ in a large spiritual
organism it is not purely physical. Spiritual forces are at work in this body; if they were not,
the physical processes themselves would come to a halt. Through the functions of the physical
body, experience and creation are revealed. There is "something" that experiences and
creates through them. It is not the eyes that see and it is not the ears that hear; these
sensory instruments merely register. This fact becomes even clearer through our perception of
life, which we experience in two essentially different details. One can sense something that is
oneself, and something that is not. One can sense something that one can bind oneself to and let
go of again, something that one can be bound by and can release oneself from. Where is the
boundary between what is oneself and what is not?
It is not so difficult to see that
we are not our surroundings, we are not the other beings, and we are not the things that
surround us. So are we our physical body? No, we say: "My body, my eyes, my ears, my limbs
etc". Here the word "my" is an expression for the I, which is something other
than the body and its organs. We can sense that there is something "behind". But it is
not possible for us to get behind the I. Everything that we can sense and experience is separate
from this I and can be summed up in the word "it". "It" is something we can
bind ourselves to or free ourselves from, but no one can free themselves from their own I. One's
I is not something that one has or does not have; it is something one is. The I is eternal and
can bind us to or free itself from "it", where "it" appears in a
never-ending mass of variations and combinations of energy that are created, that is to say
mixed, partly by the I's and creative abilities of other living beings, and partly by ourselves
and our creative ability. Our experience of life is itself an interplay between on the one hand
the combinations of matter, or "it", that we ourselves have set in motion and on the
other hand the combinations of matter of Nature and other living beings or I's, which are a
different variation of "it". This latter variation of "it" is in reality the
entire universe; it is one great, cohesive, living, cosmic organism for the living being in
which we all "live, move and have our being"; it is the eternal Godhead. As a result
the living being's experience of life is an eternal interplay with God, with You "who art
in heaven".
6. Superconsciousness and
subconsciousness
Through its eternal ability to create and experience and
its constantly changing instruments, organs or bodies, the eternal I experiences a chain of
causes and effects in its interaction with "it", which are in reality the
manifestations or answers of the eternal You, or the Godhead, to the living being's thoughts and
actions. The being sows and has to reap what it has sown, thereby forming its fate from one
incarnation to another. Present-day terrestrial mankind has itself sown its "derailed"
state or its false experience of life. It is neither the result of the punishments of an angry
god nor is it just pure chance; it is nothing other than an effect of the inadequate or
partially destroyed mental and physical organs through which human beings experience and create.
What is needed is that terrestrial human beings create for themselves better mental and physical
bodies with which to experience and create.
As we have said, every living being has
six bodies, which are all organs in its eternal body, and while the being is incarnated its
day-consciousness is borne by its physical body, which I call the body of gravity. At present a
great many human beings are enshrouded in the illusion that this physical body is their only
body, in fact many go so far as to mistakenly believe that this body is identical with
themselves. In reality it is a combination of energies that the I has bound itself to and that
this same I will sooner or later free itself from through "death". Before we
"die", we free ourselves to a certain extent from our physical body every time we go
to sleep. While we are physically incarnated we have both a "day-consciousness" and a
"night-consciousness", and whereas the day-consciousness is borne by the physical body
the night-consciousness is borne by the other five bodies. Together the six bodies and the day-
and night-consciousness represent what I in Livets Bog characterise as the living beings'
"subconsciousness". This subconsciousness, which is borne by bodies that are subject
to change and to having a beginning and an end, must of course also be subject to the same
principles and therefore be time- and space-dimensional. But just as the six time- and
space-dimensional bodies can only exist because their changes take place within the living
being's eternal body, which is not time- and space-dimensional, the time- and space-dimensional
subconsciousness can also only exist because it is rooted in and borne by something that is not
time- and space-dimensional, namely the eternal factor that I call the living being's
"superconsciousness". The superconsciousness is the eternal organ with the help of
which things of value in the living being's consciousness are transferred from one subconscious
body to another, and it is at the same time the "store room" or "filing
cabinet" for those energies of the consciousness that are not at the moment being used by
the subconscious bodies.
7. The superconscious and the subconscious
function
Just as the living being, in order that it can be an eternally
experiencing and creating being, must possess both an eternal body and time- and
space-dimensional, renewable organs or bodies, it must also possess a superconsciousness that is
by nature eternal and a subconsciousness that is changeable and time- and space-dimensional. As
we have said, the superconsciousness is the permanent organ for the organisation and storing of
the energies of the consciousness. But it is not enough that energies and things of value are
organised and stored; organising and storing energies of consciousness does not result in
experience. And without experience the living being would be regarded as an automatically
functioning machine. But that is not how living beings appear. Because the superconsciousness
through its fate element with its talent kernels (the organ for the organisation and storing of
energy) transfers the energies of consciousness to the subconscious organs or bodies, the
energies reach the point where they are something that the I can experience with its awake
day-consciousness. Day-conscious experience therefore takes place through the subconscious
bodies (in the case of present-day terrestrial human beings through the body of gravity),
whereas the superconsciousness and the eternal body guarantee the living being's eternal
organisation of energy, the storing of its talent kernels and the regeneration of its abilities
through the formation of new talent kernels.
8. The mother energy and the six basic
energies
With the superconsciousness we come into contact for the first
time with what we call energy. I call this energy in its first phase the "mother
energy". And just as the six bodies of the subconsciousness are organs in the eternal body,
the energies that make up this body are six individual basic vibrations or basic strains of the
mother energy. I have named these six energies instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence,
intuition and memory. The reason that there are six organs in the eternal body is because the I
has an organ in which each of these energies takes the dominant role while the others in this
organ are either in the process of developing, or in the process of degenerating or are
completely latent. The combined mass of energy in the whole of existence is made up of these six
basic kinds of energy, and every living being's ability to experience and create is based on its
ability to juggle with these energies and combine and mix them in an infinite number of
variations. All solid, liquid and gaseous substances are different mixtures of these six
energies, but the same applies to the ray-formed forces that human beings do not normally
perceive as matter. They are simply other mixtures of the same energies. This therefore means
that whether we are talking about the hardest metals or types of stone, about liquids or gases
or about electricity or other forms of waves or radiation, e.g. human beings' thoughts,
feelings, ideas and memories, they are every one of them different mixtures of the six basic
energies of the universe. Every energy has, just like musical notes, a series of octaves from
"bass" to "treble", but also stretching beyond the "bass" and
"treble" into areas that are beyond the normal sensory capacity of terrestrial human
beings. In some of these octaves the energies are the material for macrocosmic beings, and in
others they are the material for microcosmic beings, and in between these two there exist what I
call "the mesocosmic octaves", that is to say the world of living beings that we can
perceive with our physical senses, namely plants, animals and terrestrial human beings, as well
as spiritual beings that we cannot experience with our physical senses. In the mesocosmos,
especially in the case of human beings, we know that consciousness and energy are connected.
With respect to animals we can also recognise that there is a primitive form of consciousness
behind their manifestation of energy. As far as plants are concerned we can go so far as to talk
about life but not about consciousness. And in the case of the mineral world, we perceive it as
"dead", even though we nevertheless acknowledge that it is bound energy that can be
released, and that when we look at it in a micro-perspective it is made up of particles and
empty space. But we have not the slightest inkling of the fact that it should have anything
whatsoever to do with the concept of consciousness, because as yet the only laws of life that we
know about are physical laws.
9. Energy and consciousness, the sons of God and the
Godhead
Seen from the micro-perspective, even the most solid matter is
made up of particles and empty space, and the empty space is permeated by energy, rays and waves
that are in movement. Wherever there is energy and movement, there is also life, even though it
is in a form of matter that is perceived by human beings' physical day-consciousness as
"dead" matter. But with cosmic sight one can go further and say that wherever there is
life, there is also consciousness. All manifestations of energy in the universe, whether they
manifest in what is from the human being's perspective the microcosmos or the macrocosmos, are
created by the consciousness of living beings, living beings that form universes and matter for
one another. All these living beings "live, move and have their being" in the living
universe that is God's consciousness, and as a result the Godhead is equally close to every
single being, whether it be an atom, a human being or a galactic system. Consequently all living
beings are of equal importance, irrespective of size or temporal perspective. One day is
therefore as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day to the eternal Godhead, who
experiences through all temporal perspectives and through all living beings, they being the
Godhead's organs. For the beings in the microcosmos certain octaves in the scale of the basic
energies form the material for the creation of spiritual and physical bodies, and of
consciousness and thought processes and the resultant creative activity outside their own
organisms in the matter that surrounds them. Other octaves are used by beings in the mesocosmos,
including terrestrial human beings, and yet others by beings that are planets, solar systems and
galactic systems and even larger beings in the macrocosmos. This means that behind all the
movements and functioning of energy in the entire living universe there is a consciousness that
creates and experiences, whose origin is living beings within living beings. In fact the
expression or the description "the image of God" can be analysed as "living
beings within living beings". As a result human beings are also "in God's image after
his likeness", as both their physical and their spiritual bodies are built up of living
microbeings that "live, move and have their being" in these universes that these
bodies are to them. But there is an important difference between the eternal Godhead and all the
eternal sons of God that live in "him" in spiral cycles within spiral cycles, and that
is that whereas the sons of God will always be both macrobeings in relation to living beings in
the microcosmos or spiral cycles below their own and microbeings in relation to the beings in
the macrocosmos or spiral cycles above their own and at the same time have their outward
experience in the mesocosmos, there are no beings above or outside the eternal Godhead, and
"he" has "his" experience exclusively in "his" own inner world, in
which "his" consciousness is borne by the sons of God, which are God's organs and
instruments. In the octaves of the basic energies in all spirals the living beings interact with
one another, and as the consciousness of all these living beings is a part of the Godhead's
consciousness, their experience will be a part of God's experience. God is equally close to
every single being. Every sigh, every cry, every sense of sorrow, every sense of joy, all
suffering, all delight, every longing and urge to create as well as every sense of joy and
gratitude in a completed work of creation that streams through the consciousness of living
beings, also streams through the consciousness of God, through the spiritual beings that are
"his" receptor organs. But like all living beings "in his image", the
Godhead does not only have organs for receiving but also organs for sending out, that is to say
living beings that represent the principle of guardian angels and the principle of world
redemption. Such beings take part in helping and protecting where it fits in with the way the
fates of other living beings are formed, as well as in promoting evolution in a sphere such as
terrestrial mankind, for example.
10. Feeling – the energy that binds
Let us turn from these enormous cosmic perspectives towards something that is
at this moment very closely related to the terrestrial human being's physical body and its life
force. But before we do that we must take a close look at physical matter as a whole. The
building that you are in at this moment as well as the house that you live in are made up of the
energy of consciousness. This is inevitable since there is consciousness everywhere. All six
basic energies must exist in such a building: instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence,
intuition and memory. The reason you do not usually perceive it in this way is because here
these energies appear in octaves that terrestrial human beings cannot normally experience as
energies of consciousness; they rather experience them as substance or matter. That this is so
is due to the cosmic principle of perspective. They are the manifestations of consciousness of
living beings that cosmically are very "far away" from terrestrial human beings. But
how can we know that they are energies of consciousness? Let us take a look at how the energy
that I call the energy of feeling reacts when we look at it in various perspectives.
The energy of feeling is an energy that binds and draws together. We can recognise
this in the case of human beings' emotions. Feelings of love bind people together, whether just
two people or a group of people of any size. What we call the love of one's native country is an
example of a feeling of being bonded, just like the feelings that exist between the members of a
family. Is there not a strong bond of feeling in a mother's love? It can sometimes be so strong
that when the child reaches the age at which it wants greater freedom and independence, it feels
far too bound and it does what it can to free itself. Through their power to bind, feelings can
be a positive force in love, friendship, cooperation and mutual contact between living beings.
But they can also have a negative effect. They can become bonds that have the effect of binding
inwardly in the human being's own mind. They can become "mental prisons" that can bind
a human being's thinking to such an extent that only the guardian angels that help human beings
in the transitional state after death can help the being, through the use of suggestion, out of
the self-created hell or purgatory consisting of jealousy, bitterness, envy, hatred or other
such feelings. This purgatory can perhaps also consist of anxiety or a guilty conscience
resulting from actions that such feelings caused him to commit at times when they had total
control over the human being's consciousness. They can be directed outwards towards the
surroundings, and they can also be directed inwards into the mind. But they always have the
effect of an energy that binds.
11. The state of tension between fire and
cold
Since the energy of feeling as well as the other basic energies works
in an infinite series of octaves up into the macrocosmos and down into the microcosmos, and
since at the same time each of the energies maintains its eternal characteristics and ability to
react to the other energies, it means that the energy of feeling in the macrocosmic and
microcosmic octaves also has the effect of binding and drawing together. Under what conditions
are terrestrial human beings faced with a force in Nature that they are unable on their present
step in evolution to experience as consciousness, but that they have to acknowledge as a force
that binds? When they come up against that force in Nature that is the coldness of the universe.
Coldness is the energy of feeling, a force that will always in all situations bind and hold
together whatever it rules over. But the universe is not a mere combination of matter bound
together by coldness. Just as the energy of feeling exists in an infinite number of octaves
above and below terrestrial human beings' mesocosmic, day-conscious ability to experience, its
absolute opposite, the energy of gravity, also exists in macro-, meso- and microcosmic octaves.
This manifests itself in those octaves that are beyond terrestrial human beings' consciousness
as warmth and fire, a force that will cause whatever it comes into contact with to expand. The
state of tension between these two cosmic or universal energies – feeling, the energy that
binds, and gravity, the energy that expands – which exists in all octaves of the basic energies,
whether micro-, meso- or macrocosmic, forms the basis of the power behind all life force and
power to manifest in all living beings' physical and mental renewable organs through which they
have day-conscious experience. And thus this state of tension forms the background for all life
force, both physical and mental.
In those octaves in which terrestrial human beings
juggle with these two energies in their consciousness, the energies decide what form the mental
life force will take. But also in relation to physical life force the tension between gravity
and feeling is of the utmost importance. But here it is in octaves where they appear as fire and
coldness. In terrestrial human beings' physical body the state of tension between the universal
fire and coldness, between the energy of gravity and the energy of feeling, shows itself as the
being's normal body temperature, which has a very great deal to do with the human being's
physical life force. If a human being's temperature rises several degrees above or drops several
degrees below what is normal it can be registered in the being's physical life force, and it
will perhaps not be long before their life force disappears altogether from the physical plane
and they die. The normal temperature of the Earth is also based on a balance between warmth and
coldness, and if this state of balance were to cease, if for example warmth were to take over,
the Earth would have a "high fever", which could lead to the death of all animal life
in its organism, including terrestrial human beings. But human beings need not be afraid of this
happening, even though there are many who due to the world situation perhaps believe that such
an event could be approaching. The world situation is not a sign that the Earth is sick and
close to death. It is a sign of a development that has to do with the state of tension between
gravity and feeling in its consciousness.
12. Mental and physical balance
The normal
body temperature of terrestrial human beings shows how these beings, over long periods of time
and with the experience of many incarnations, have succeeded in creating a renewable body with
gravity and feeling in balance. This has become an ingenious, automatic function. And the same
applies to the Earth being in its spiral, which is the reason why we also fit into its organism.
This means that both the Earth being and we ourselves have brought the tension between fire and
coldness under control and are holding this tension in a permanent state of balance, and this
state of balance is the same as physical life force. Explosions are taking place in the
organism, but they are all under control in the same way that they are in an engine. The beating
of the heart, the circulation of the blood, in fact all the movements that take place in the
organism or that are made by it are initiated by this controlled tension. But what form does the
relationship between gravity and feeling take in the mental area of the Earth being and
terrestrial human beings? Are the explosions here also counterbalanced through the will by the
binding energy of feeling? No, they are not, and this is the sole cause of the present state of
the Earth being and terrestrial mankind. But the Earth being is on the point of gaining this
mental balance in its consciousness, thereby having the same power over its psyche as it does
over its organism. This will, from the Earth being's perspective, take place in a short time.
The Earth will then have gained cosmic consciousness. In terrestrial human beings' time
perspective it will take about 3,000 years, during which time human beings will succeed – one by
one and some ahead of others – in gaining a mental balance between gravity and feeling. This
means that they will be in control of their minds so that they will not explode in hatred, anger
and irritation, and neither will they be "imprisoned by their feelings" of bitterness,
jealousy, disappointment, anxiety and depression. Human beings' life force, which according to
the plan of Providence will be united with high spiritual energies, has in the time- and
space-dimensional worlds its origin in the balance between gravity and feeling, and when
terrestrial human beings gain mastery over their minds to a degree that is equivalent to the
mastery that they normally have over their physical bodies, their life force as love and wisdom,
which regulates how they act, will reach such heights that one would nowadays be inclined to
think of it as the stuff of mere fairy tales. But no fairy tale can come close to describing the
radiant marvels that human beings will themselves one day experience once the gravity and
feeling in their consciousness are under the control of their will and reason.
From a lecture by Martinus at the Martinus Institute on Sunday
21 February 1954. Manuscript for the lecture revised by Mogens Møller. Revision approved by
Martinus. First published in the Danish edition of Kosmos no. 14-16/1968. Original Danish
title: Livskraftens oprindelse. Translation: Andrew Brown, 2010.
Article ID: M1440
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
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