Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1649

1649. But in order for this feeling of pleasantness or state of wellbeing to be possible, a desire for it had to be created, a desire whose satisfaction could make the feeling of wellbeing an experience. But in order for this desire to become a possibility the being had to be brought into an unpleasant or disharmonious state, a state that in detail is the opposite of wellbeing. How could the desire for or ability to feel wellbeing otherwise arise? The experience of life is thus determined by a "life of unpleasantness" and a "life of pleasantness", a "life of mental darkness" and a "life of mental light". In order to be able to maintain a perpetual or eternal experience of life, and a light and harmonious way of life and bliss, the eternal living being must thus submit to a deadly, dark, disharmonious and painful way of experiencing life. It must experience unhappiness in order to be able to perceive happiness. The same principle determines all relativity, that is, the fact that something created can be experienced or sensed only in relation to something else that is created. The experience of life must thus of necessity consist of all contrasts or shades between the extreme poles of light and darkness, pleasantness and unpleasantness.