Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1656

1656. But since the being is an eternally imperishable individual, its drive for self-preservation does not protect its eternal existence. It can be a tendency to protect only something that can perish, something that can be dissolved or destroyed. That which cannot perish has no need of protection. So what is it about the being that can perish and that instigates the protection or drive for self-preservation? That which can perish in the living being, if it does not protect it with its drive for self-preservation, is that which has already begun to form a contrast to its own eternal existence. The formation of this contrast gradually takes the form of the individual's "self-knowledge". And this self-knowledge in turn raises the animal up from its animal state to the incipient terrestrial human existence. But this self-knowledge is not knowledge of the being's eternal existence or identity with eternity and infinity. It is merely knowledge of the contrast to its real identity. It is knowledge of the being's physical body and the physical phenomena connected to it. This being thus perceives this body and the phenomena connected to it as being the same as its real self. And the physical world is regarded as the only realistic plane of existence. But since both the body and the phenomena experienced or sensed through this body cannot possibly be anything other than "created" phenomena, they cannot constitute the being's real or absolute, eternal self. They can express only something that this absolute self has gradually produced or created. And the being's experience of life then becomes the illusion that it constitutes the created body, and that it therefore ceases to exist at the time of the death, decomposition or destruction of this body. And here, where this experience is the dominant one within the being's drive for self-preservation, the being has reached the culmination or goal for the creation of the contrast with which it will gradually be able to mark out its own eternal life or identity with eternity and infinity. But the perception that it is at one with its physical body and that this perception constitutes the complete analysis of the living being is thus the same as the perception that a dead thing is something living; it is to perceive death instead of life. But perceiving death is the same as experiencing the contrast to real life. And with this the formation of a contrast is complete. The individual experiences the darkness of the world structure.