Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 3, sect. 973

973. Over the centuries generations have cursed this phase and no longer recognise it as in any way belonging to the principle of world redemption, and this is due simply to the fact that they are now satiated to the point of feeling loathing and nausea at its very nature. The cooling "summer rain" is on the point of becoming an undermining humidity. This plant, this son of God, is beginning to fear that it is in danger of foundering in a quagmire of mould, mildew and fungus and is therefore now crying out for the light of bliss or the warming mental sunshine that can release this divine being from the dark, muddy atmosphere of mental humidity. And it is this cry that terrestrial human beings today recognise as the cry for the Godhead, the cry for the solution to the mystery of life, the cry for true peace or "redemption", the cry for an "everlasting life" in bliss, the cry for "neighbourly love". And only that which contributes to bringing the wishes of this terrestrial human being to fulfilment is today accepted as belonging to "world redemption". Everything that acts in the opposite direction is perceived by this being as "evil". And yet this "evil" was at one time considered so desirable, indeed something of such vital importance to life, that the son of God's continued eternal existence, life or mentality would have been totally impossible if this son of God, or this living being, had not at a certain time been helped into this "evil". Just as it is today of such vital importance for the life of the son of God to be free of this "evil" and so be guided into the brilliant sunshine of neighbourly love, it was at one time an equally unshakable vital necessity for the promotion of the son of God's eternal ability to experience life to bring him almost totally out of this sunshine. Exactly the same principle is one hundred per cent revealed to us in daily existence and in the purely physical maintenance of life. In places where there is never any moisture, water or rain but where the air and soil are permanently heated by the scorching rays of a sun, life ebbs away and the desert fills existence with its baking, barren desolation. In places where the warming rays of a glowing sun are tempered by mixing it with an appropriate amount of cool water, oasis-like terrains arise, abundant with flowers and orchards laden with fruit. Thus the existence of the desert is justified. It shows us, in a purely outward, elementary way, the structure of life itself. It is a picture of the son of God's innermost spiritual or mental structure and shows his relationship to the "Fall" and to "world redemption". What is the living being's cry for the "forbidden fruit" other than the thirsty desert traveller's cry for water? And what is the godless, civilized human beings' cry for peace and neighbourly love other than this same thirsty desert traveller's cry for the nourishment and satiation that is vital to his life? The satisfaction of both these cries is therefore the same principle. "Evil" and "good" are equally the "salvation of the world" or, more correctly, the eternal divine Father's perfect and total, loving embrace of his own beloved son: the living being. And this son therefore reveals himself as passing through two forms of desire or hunger, both of which are abundantly satiated by the divine Father.