Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1495

1495. The true "disciple of Christ" or the real humanist is thus first and foremost to go out to all the people who have not yet become "disciples of Christ", which means to all the beings that are searching for the truth or longing for perfection. And here he is to "baptise them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", which in turn means that he is to live his life completely in harmony with the cosmic analyses in Livets Bog, which in turn means "neighbourly love" or "loving one's neighbour as oneself". Here he must liberate himself from the superstition that "baptising" in the name of the trinity is merely a formula he is to recite while in one way or another immersing the baptismal candidate in water. Do not imagine that this ceremony can suddenly transform anyone from being a "villain" to being a "saint", even though it can, to some degree and under certain circumstances, perhaps contribute to "converting" a human being, so that he feels drawn or inspired to living a more perfect life than previously. Is it not likely that after such a "baptism" the being will still be in the same situation as Paul was, where he says of himself, "the good that I would, I do not do: but the evil that I would not, that I do", despite the fact that Paul had gone through, not a "baptism of water", but in fact a "baptism of fire". Was it not just such a baptism that he experienced on the road to Damascus? And is it not likely that this "baptism of fire" was one of the first stages of the "great birth"? If not even this direct "baptism" with the "holy spirit" could turn Paul into a perfect or finished human being, how can one imagine that a simple "immersion in water" or some splashes of water could dispose of the primitivity and imperfection in an individual's mentality, and suddenly, miraculously make angelic high-intellectuality and neighbourly love the all-determining factor in the functions or display of the mentality? Indeed, "baptising in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" is not a manifestation that is as easy and straightforward as merely splashing one's neighbour with water to a religious formula. If it were as easy as that to turn a being into a "disciple of Christ", all the people of the world would have long since attained perfection, and the "kingdom of heaven" would have become common experience on all the continents and seas of the Earth. Indeed, none of the various authorised forms of baptism can ever in any case whatsoever be or become anything other than a symbolic expression of the true, realistic "baptism" celebrated in the name of the trinity, the baptism that can be nothing but the manifestation or revelation of an absolutely perfect life lived in absolute neighbourly love. From a cosmic point of view, to "baptise" is absolutely the same as to "manifest". And "manifesting" can be done in only two ways, namely, in a perfect way, through which harmony, happiness and joy in life arise, and in an imperfect way, through which disharmony arises and thereby also unhappiness and pain, sorrow and suffering. If one carries out a perfect manifestation, one thus "baptises" with "harmony", while if one carries out an imperfect manifestation one "baptises" with "disharmony".
But in order to make a perfect manifestation or to "baptise" with "harmony" one must know the structure of life, which in turn means knowing its laws and thereby the causes of its perfection. But once one knows the causes or prerequisites for being able to create a perfect manifestation, it is merely a question of time before the individual will be able to manifest this perfection himself, since every being's normality commands it to strive to be able to comply with the prerequisites that guarantee its life's highest happiness or joy in existing. So what is the "cause" of life's highest perfection? Well, there is no escaping the triune principle: the "Father", the "Son" and the "Holy Spirit", which in turn here in Livets Bog are called "X1", "X2" and "X3" respectively. These three "X's" in turn constitute life's highest structure or basic analysis. Living in harmony with this analysis is the same as knowing that one has an immortal I, which in turn has a creative faculty and an organism, by virtue of which it survives all phenomena, experiences the effects of its actions and thereby becomes an "image" of the universe itself, which also has an immortal I with a creative faculty (the forces of Nature) and an organism (the universe). For a living being, living in harmony with this will mean it is aware of its own eternal identity and thereby its survival of the effects of its actions, and that it can thereby live in nothing other than absolute harmony with the logic on which life's very highest form of happiness is based. As this logic, from a cosmic point of view, is the same as "universal love" – since something that is not absolutely logical must create corresponding disharmony, and disharmony can in turn never be advantageous to "neighbourly" or "universal love" – "baptising in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" will thus in fact be the same as spending one's life practising absolute or perfect "neighbourly love". Christ's command to the apostles about "baptising" in the name of the trinity was thus the same as a command to manifest perfect or absolute neighbourly love and thereby become a light for all other human beings on the terrestrial plane, so that, by virtue of this, they too could find their way to becoming "disciples of Christ", to becoming perfect. So the command was to radiate the very highest wisdom through their behaviour and not to bind beings in sects or dictatorship.