Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1102

1102. As to "sensory perception", it thus constitutes the central factor in the release of "cause and effect". In order that a thing can "be sensed" or "be experienced" at all, something that has the faculty to "sense" or "experience" must exist beforehand. We already know this "something" as the "living being". As we mentioned previously, this being manifests itself by functioning eternally, and this eternal functioning determines the fact that it is "living". This eternal functioning is the release of "cause and effect" that appears in the form of its "sensory perception". When such a "living being" "experiences" or "senses" something as an "inkling", this "experience" constitutes nothing but the "effect" of a previous "cause". When these "effects" are "sensed" as "inklings" and do not result in any other kind of sensory perception it is one hundred per cent due to the specific "cause" released beforehand, the "experience" being "effects" of this "cause". This "cause", as we will see later, could also have been of such a nature that its effect on the sensory experience could have been not only an "inkling" but also a strong "hunch" or a kind of "wisdom" in the form of "belief". Indeed, it could also have had the effect on the being's sensory perception that an "experience" could have become a realistic "feeling", a concrete experience of "pleasure" or "displeasure", or it could have become concrete "knowledge" or an analysis of the "experience". It could also have become a sublime, "loving meeting" or an "exchange of caresses" with all things "living" and thereby with the Godhead or the highest being, just as it could also have been an experience of sublime "inner" bliss. Any "experience" or "thought" will thus enter the consciousness as one of these phases mentioned here. And which phase this will belong to or appear under will thus be determined by the previous "cause" of which the "experience" is an "effect". This previous "cause" is the very "sensory faculty". As previously mentioned, this faculty is eternal, and is kept alive by virtue of the fact that it is a transformation of "causes" into "effects", and of "effects" into "causes". It constitutes a combination of the "effects" of everything that the "living being" in question has experienced in its previous lives. These "effects" of previous lives appear thus today in the form of the "sensory faculty" as the "cause" of how much this being can "sense" or "feel" of all the releases of energy or influences of life that it meets or comes into contact with today. If its "feeling" of a thing today manifests itself only in the form of a very uncertain and nebulous "inkling", then the being cannot come to understand or grasp what this thing confronting it is, it will mean that the being has not been in touch with this thing or this kind of thing before. It is new to its range of sensory perception and is situated so far out in its outermost periphery that the being cannot as yet discern it clearly or distinctly enough to be able to identify it or compare it to something that it knows already.