Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1067

1067. The above-mentioned "points" in the cycle, in the individual experiences as well as in the series of experiences, mean everything in the experience of life itself; indeed, what would it be without them? The opposite of all these points without exception exists outside the "now", which means that they are outside realistic, practical experience in this "now" and can therefore constitute merely temporary "imaginary" phenomena. So if a human being in its practical way of acting is "loving", this way of acting constitutes the being's "now". In the same "now" it cannot be the opposite. It can have been "unloving" only before or after this "now", but in the same "now" it cannot possibly be "unloving", just as little as it can be hungry and satiated at the same time. So no concept that covers an analysis can possibly cover anything other than the "now". It must cover either one or the other of the two opposites. It must state that "something" is "evil" or "good", "big" or "small", "heavy" or "light", "loose" or "fixed" and so on. It cannot cover both contrasts at the same time. Something that is just as evil as it is good, just as big as it is small and so on has no analysis, but must equal "X". Absolutely nothing in the same "now" can constitute the opposite of itself. Everything that exists as a contrast to the "now" cannot in this "now" possibly constitute anything other than an "imaginary" phenomenon. So everything outside the "now" can exist or be experienced in this "now" only as "imaginary" contrasts to the "now". These "imaginary" contrasts together constitute two spheres, of which the first constitutes the "past" and the other the "future". The realistic experiences appearing before the "now" have thus become "thoughts" in the "now" in the form of "memories", just as the realistic experiences occurring after the "now" exist in the "now" only as "thoughts" in the form of more or less true "conjectures". So these two great phenomena do not exist in any form whatsoever in the living being's "now" in any other way than as "imaginary" phenomena. The "past" and the "future" are thus not physical phenomena, their appearance in the "now" being exclusively "spiritual". Only the "now" itself can be realistic, practical experience. But, immediately after its manifestation, this practical experience will be transformed into the "past" and will thereby have disappeared completely from the experiencing being's plane of completely realistic experiences and exists now exclusively in its sphere of thoughts, which in turn means in its consciousness. But the energy of this "past", which has been transformed into "thoughts" or consciousness, continues, however, to vibrate in the "now" in such a way that it forms more or less hazy images or signs of a continuation of these vibrations beyond the "now". These hazy images of this continued effect of the "past" outside the "now" exist therefore in the "now" as the "imaginary" "future".