Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1724

1724. That this is so is borne out by the fact that this neighbourly love is just as little an act of will as marital love is. The terrestrial human being may have a strong will as regards wishing the best for everything and everyone, but time and time again it finds itself incapable of putting its wish into practice. And every time disharmony thus arises between its will and a humane wish, the being has the reaction in its consciousness that we call "pangs of conscience". Pangs of conscience are thus a fundamental confirmation of the fact that the feeling of universal love is an organic product, a result of evolution and not merely an act of will. There is no normal human being that aspires to having pangs of conscience, is there? Does not the human being struggle to get rid of its bad conscience? Indeed, has this bad conscience not sometimes driven people to suicide? But when evolution guides every human being towards a state in which their organic structure gives rise in the being to this love for its neighbour regardless of sex, and this ultimately becomes so strong that it cannot transgress its dictates without having pangs of conscience, this organic structure increasingly determines the being's actions. In the same way it also determines the being's desire for wisdom, its desire for an intellectual or cerebral explanation of why its state of love differs from marital love. In no situation whatsoever does it feel happy about anything in Nature or life around it being judged as "evil" or "devilish" in the cosmic sense. In its innermost being it feels that this is a human delusion, and that what we call "evil" or "devilish" must fulfil one higher divine purpose or another in the great world plan and cannot therefore lead to absolute damnation, eternal torment, death or annihilation. It feels that a true justification for all dark phenomena must exist, a justification that brings these phenomena into harmony with universal love and shows that they add up to the great answer: "Everything is very good". With its state of love the being cannot possibly feel satisfied with any other answer. And thus its entire intellectual force is attuned to having this answer confirmed by absolute wakingly day-conscious knowledge.