M1130
The Cosmic World Picture in Pocket-Sized Edition
by Martinus
What is a world picture? It is a survey of the fundamental principles which form the basis for the whole of nature, living beings and the reactions and movements of the stars and milky ways. But how shall a human being, who is such a tiny microbe, ever be able to make such a survey? However, the entire universe has neither beginning nor end. So it is extending infinitely. Therefore one will never be able to attain a survey of something which is extending infinitely. How shall one reach the bottom of something which is bottomless? So only fanatics can claim to have a survey of the universe. Indeed, the ordinary modern perception will probably be expressed in that way - this is especially likely from the viewpoint of materialistic science itself. But how can the ordinary materialistically-minded human being ever be able to get any other sort of concept? - They do not yet understand how to attune their senses, intelligence and capacity for understanding in such a way that they really can survey the entire universe and thereby experience the solution of the mystery, or riddle, of life. It is not life's intention that life itself, the being's own identity, should remain mysterious. For Christ, life and its originator was not anything mysterious but crystal-clear reality. The fact that he was not able to reveal his great knowledge in any other way than in a very childlike manner was not because of he himself, but because of the childlike and cosmically illiterate mankind to whom he had to speak. It is the same primitivity and cosmically childlike behaviour of humanity which have meant that neither have the great world religions been able to reveal the secret of the world picture in logical rows of thought, discernable for the intelligence and thereby verifiable as facts for the intellect. To obtain a survey of the entire universe is therefore not impossible. Why then cannot science - with its huge optical equipment: telescopes, microscopes and electron-microscopes, and its huge electronic brains - achieve this kind of survey? - No, with the attitude of modern science and ordinary materialistically-minded humanity the mystery or secret of the entire universe is insoluble. The survey of the entire universe is therefore not a question of phenomena which can be researched by expert scientists. The solution of the secret or mystery of the entire universe is not a question of size or weights and measures, nor is the mystery or secret of the living being solved by knowledge of the same being's size, volume, shape and colour. As the entire universe is infinite, it contains all sizes. The ultimate conclusion of something which constitutes all sizes cannot possibly be expressed by a size. Neither can something which has all dimensions within itself be expressed by a final result in the form of a number. As long as one is only prepared for research into something which can be expressed in numbers or in weights and measures then one finds oneself along a path of science which ends in a cul-de-sac. And one obtains absolutely no answer whatsoever to life's really important questions: What is life, what is the living being, is it immortal, and what is the entire universe? - So perhaps one will ask here, of what use -if any - is the solution of the mystery of life. But to this one must then again put the question: How shall we otherwise overcome all the misery, depression, sorrow and ill-health and the all-pervading "war of all against all"? None of these, or similar, questions of great importance can be answered by a result expressed in numbers. It does not help that one knows the speed of light, the distance between the stars, the structure of atoms and electrons, the rotations of the Earth and the orbit of the sun in space etc. when one is suffering from serious illness. This knowledge is not any comfort either in time of sorrow, nor is it of any help when one is depressed or tired of life. If answers in weights and measures were able to explain such problems of life for people then the Earth would have become a world of angels long ago, a world in which there was neither sorrow, pain nor cries for help. But it is not so. The world is actually culminating in sorrow, death throes and fatal illnesses, although people are masters of physical material, pressing buttons to harness thousands upon thousands of nature's horsepower.
In order to find the solution of the very mystery of life, one must then find one's way out of the blind alley of materialistic science. This is not meant as an underestimation of materialistic science, but rather as a justification for it. Because of course, in a very ingenious way it solves those areas of life's mystery for which it was designed and which are within its capacity. To demand that it should solve problems and riddles of quite another nature than weights and measures, volume, shape and colour is the same as demanding that it should be adept at giving information about things and phenomena which belong to quite another reality than that which can be weighed and measured.
What kind of other reality is it then? - It is that reality which one arrives at when one understands that the entire universe is infinite both in time and space, and that it is therefore not accessible for any kind of weighing or measuring. Therefore, there could not be any resulting number for any kind of time or space dimension. Nevertheless, in spite of this we are compelled to recognise that it does exist. So we stand facing something which exists outside time and space. Here we have the first meeting with a reality of quite another nature than the reality which we can weigh and measure. As this 'Something' is outside time and space, it has only one single analysis, namely this: that is constitutes 'Something which is'. So here we have arrived at a fixed reality which we cannot take away. Moreover we can begin to discover something more about this reality which is subject neither to time nor space. We know that all creation and all movement occur in this 'Something' in the same way as we know that it is just this movement or creation which acts on our senses. Therefore, what we experience is not this 'Something which is', but something which is in this. Something'. By virtue of the fact that there is movement, it can influence the senses which are also movement, and this results in what we call the experience of life. Therefore, life-experience is really only a series of encounters or collisions between the energy of our senses and the energy of the surroundings. As the movements differ in speed and strength, the collisions also differ in strength. It is these different kinds of collisions we experience through our senses and which become our joys and sorrows, our health and ill-health, our harmony and disharmony with our surroundings. In certain cases these sense-collisions appear as fixed substance, and in other cases as liquid, gases or rays. And thus we form conceptions about substance and matter at the same time as we ourselves become able to juggle with these substances and materials. We call this juggling 'creating'.
So we have now seen that in this 'Something which is' there is not only movement and the collisions and reactions of movements, but there is also something which experiences all this, namely we ourselves. What or who are we? - In order to arrive at an understanding of who we are then we must actually recognise that we cannot be identical with our organism because it only represents movement, whether it is the smallest gland function or a vibration in the brain, just as the musculature and skeleton also represent movement or vibration. Therefore in our innermost Self or 'I' we are not only able to experience movements but we ourselves can initiate movement, which means we can create. But as we ourselves are not participating in the movement, then we cannot be weighed or measured. Thus we also exist outside time and space. We - our innermost Self - are here not to be considered as either male or female, either large or small, either evil or good. So we cannot have any other analysis than the analysis of the universe itself, namely 'Something which is'. We now know that the 'Something' which is inside us is that which we call our 'I'. And it cannot have any beginning or end. Like the universe it is an eternal reality. But this, our 'I', is therefore beyond movement and can experience and initiate movement in the form of creation. This creation makes it a fact that it exists. And we also know that without this 'I' in our organism it is bound to die and decompose. The living being with its organism therefore constitutes movements and can itself initiate movement. Here we witness the fact that there is an originator behind the movements and that these movements cannot possibly form themselves into logical creation without the presence of this 'I'. Each of us constitutes a creator and the created and thus represent two worlds - the time and space dimensional one and the eternal one. The time and space dimensional world is our organism and our creation. They are a manifestation or revelation of our I's existence beyond this creation. That we are mankind is only a temporary combination of the substance, the energies and the movement created by our 'I' but it is certainly not ourselves. But then, what about the universe? We also considered that that was infinite, beyond time and space and also 'Something which is'.
As the movements of the universe also appear as creations or logical combinations of materials, so that they become useful as a blessing for living beings, then they too reveal that - just like the manifestations and creations of man - they are the result of thinking. And just as the manifestations and creations of man reveal him as a living being, so the creations of nature or the universe likewise reveal the universe or cosmos as a living being. The cosmos is therefore an organism for an eternal 'I' in the same way as our organism is for our 'I'. The cosmos is therefore the organism of a living being in which we and our organism live. And our daily experience of life is a question of harmonious or disharmonious collaboration between the energies of this great organism and our own energies or substances, Our happy or unhappy fate is dependent on this relationship. Therefore the experience of life is a product of our relationship to the structure of the entire universe, in the same way as the life-experience of our microorganisms corresponds to their relationship to the structure of our organism. By our behaviour we can be in disharmony with the structure of the entire universe and so in disharmony with God's organism, and our fate becomes unhappy, in the same way as we can be in disharmony with the micro-individuals in our own organism and experience ill-health - this being a mere detail from the whole range of unhappy destinies. If we are in harmony with God's organism and the micro-beings in our own organism, we have become perfect man in God's image. This is the great goal of creation. The world picture in pocket-sized edition therefore means that the entire universe is a living being, an expression for the highest idea of the display of consciousness, physical and mental creation and behaviour. It is this living being which people through thousands of years have rightly worshipped as God. And as we are micro-beings in this Godhead and therefore anatomically connected to the organism of this Godhead, it is beyond doubt that our total physical and mental well-being is entirely conditioned by the extent to which we are helpful to all other living beings. If we do not look after our physical organism and fulfil its essential health-giving requirements of nourishment and hygiene, to a greater or lesser extent we destroy the life and well-being of the micro-individuals in our own organism, and so accordingly, ill-health occurs. And if we feel anger and bitterness towards other beings and try to persecute them because we think they have wronged us - yes, then we are actually persecuting micro-beings in God's organism. And God must start to fight us in order to preserve the health of His own organism. And the Godhead's fight against ill-health in His body or organism takes place with such accuracy and precision that "whatsoever a man soweth, so shall he reap". Yes, "even the hairs of your head are all numbered", just as it is impossible for "a sparrow to fall to the ground without it being the will of God". It is not so extraordinary that loving one's neighbour as oneself is the fulfilment of all the laws.
With this attitude to the entire universe, we entered a road which did not end in a cul-de-sac but which was a through road directly into the understanding of the fact that the entire universe is the Godhead's non-time-and-space-dimensional organism in which we, as equally eternal beings, "live and move and have our being", and that the whole of our happy or unhappy way of living is entirely a question of anatomy. All living beings are life-organs in a greater organism. If, by our thinking and behaviour we are destroying life and promoting depression in other living beings in the same organism, then we create sick and unhealthy areas in the great organism in which we experience life. Here it is easy to see that the fundamental cause of all suffering in the world is a violation of the perfect anatomy by the power of which all life in the universe is tied together forming a unit. We have seen another life-giving thought-process which here shows us that we are eternal, contributing centres in this unity and that the only way to total health and happiness is therefore to be a joy and a blessing for everything with which one comes into contact. And that was the world picture in pocket-sized edition!
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Original Danish title: Det kosmiske verdensbillede i lommeformat. A lecture given at the Martinus Institute on Thursday, 10th February 1955. First published in the Danish edition of Kosmos no. 1, 1983. Section headings by Ole Therkelsen. Translated by: Mary McGovern, 1983.
Article ID: M1130
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 3, 1983
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
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