M1285: The Small and the Large Spiral Cycle

M1285

The Small and the Large Spiral Cycle

by Martinus

1. Cycles bring about mental growth

In previous lectures we have seen that the living being is an eternal reality, and that life and death are merely alternating phases in this eternal existence. It will therefore mean a great deal to be able to understand more about the great features that form the foundation of this being's eternal life. The fundamental features of eternal life are not complicated. They are actually just as easy to understand as the ordinary phenomena of everyday life, such as having to alternate between sleeping or resting and working, and having to eat and drink etc.

We thus live in a continuous existence that manifests itself in such a way that we are born into the physical world where we live through a so-called "terrestrial life", after which we "die", which means we pass over into a so-called spiritual existence, following which we are born once again into the physical world, and so on, and this is the reason why this alternating existence can be described as a "spiral cycle". A single passage through one terrestrial life and one spiritual life can also be described as a cycle, on account of the fact that the being returns once again to its starting point, which in this case means to the principal form of existence from which it started out. It thus returns to the spiritual existence from which it is born into the world. And from this spiritual world the being is born once again into the physical world, from where it once more enters the spiritual world. In this way its eternal existence is divided into certain specific sections. But as each section bestows new experiences on the individual, and new experiences enable the being to experience yet more new experiences, the being's passage through the physical and the spiritual planes of existence implies mental growth. Each subsequent section is thus, from the point of view of the mentality or consciousness, richer or larger to the being than the preceding one. The being cannot therefore be exactly the same in each life. In each new terrestrial life it will be equipped with the effects of the experiences it has reaped in preceding lives. In this way the living beings' eternal existence takes the form of a sequence of steps or sections growing from primitivity to intellectuality.

2. The beginnings of evolution on the physical plane

If we take for example a modern, present-day human being, the so-called "civilised human being", it could not in its previous lives on Earth have been in possession of all the new experiences that it has acquired during its present existence. From a mental point of view it will therefore in its previous lives represent a poorer existence than the one it now possesses. If we go even further back, its existence will be poorer still in experience and knowledge. This means that we will eventually reach right down to lives in which the being would have been very primitive indeed, in fact so primitive that it cannot be called a "human being" at all; it would have appeared with a mentality or consciousness far below the levels of consciousness of human beings.

But we can go still further back in the living being's series of terrestrial lives, right down to the very beginnings of this series of terrestrial lives. But is there such a "beginning"? Yes, such a beginning becomes clearly evident through the fact that we know that the Earth just like other globes has not existed eternally; all globes have at one time begun their appearance in the physical world as glowing clouds of gases that gradually condensed into glowing or radiant suns or oceans of fire, from which each one was ejected. And through a particular cooling process, the Earth became a home to life, where life could be acted out, which is what it is today. But as it was at one time totally impossible for physical beings to live on the Earth, there must therefore have been a point which marked the very beginning of the series of terrestrial human beings' lives on Earth. And this beginning can only have taken place at a point in the history of the creation of the Earth when it had cooled down sufficiently to allow the formation of physical organisms or bodies, through which the living beings could begin to experience the physical surroundings.

3. The ability to sense vaguely is the first form of experience

Before something can become real knowledge, it first has to be something that can be sensed only vaguely. This shows us that the very first form of physical experience was a mere "vague sensing". If we follow the series of lives of terrestrial human beings backwards, we come to terrestrial lives during which the being's physical organism was merely an instrument for sensing vaguely. This ability to sense vaguely was the only physical form of sensing. In this state the being could not experience anything concrete whatsoever on the physical plane. It could begin to sense things vaguely. But what was there at this point to have a vague sense of on the physical plane? There was only "light" and "darkness" and changes of temperature. Wherever these changes in temperature or in light and darkness were in contact with the rudimentary kernel of the living being, the I would be able, through this kernel, to feel pleasantness, and wherever the changes in temperature or in light and darkness were not in contact with this kernel it would be able to feel unpleasantness. When present-day civilised human beings were at this point in their existence, they were unable to experience anything concrete whatsoever on the physical plane. Everything physical was a "mystery". Out of this mystery the being had a vague sense of only pleasantness and unpleasantness. It could not even feel pain or suffering yet. Apart from this aspect of the being's terrestrial life, the being did not exist on the physical plane. But if it did not exist on the physical plane, it can only have existed on the spiritual plane.

4. Life around us displays a range of evolutionary steps

We can pause here in order to look further into whether there is something in our surroundings that indicates whether this way of looking at the living beings' series of terrestrial lives is correct. We have been able, purely in our thinking, to follow the series of our terrestrial lives back to its very beginnings on the physical plane. But is there not something in our outer environment that indicates that the way we have constructed our thinking regarding the living being's series of terrestrial lives is something different from, and more than, our own imagination? Yes, there is, to the very highest degree. We are fortunately in a position to be able not only to travel backwards through the lives in our thoughts, but also to observe with our outer physical senses all the stages in the series of our terrestrial lives. We are in fact surrounded by nothing else. Are we not faced with, in our outer surroundings, the entire succession of all the different stages of life in the series of terrestrial lives? Is it not the case that living beings show us a range of steps, stretching from the high-intellectual, initiated being, down through the primitive human stages, on through the animal stages and right down to plants – to those forms of life that can sense only vaguely light and warmth as something pleasant that they are attracted to and towards which they open their flowers and leaves, and darkness and cold as something unpleasant against which they close their flowers and leaves.

5. The enriching of our experience is proof of reincarnation

How could this entire range of steps of life-experience exist if it were not based on the being's continual enrichment of experience or gathering of knowledge? The fundamental evidence in support of continuing existence or reincarnation is thus the enrichment of our experience, our desire for knowledge and our ability to accumulate within ourselves the knowledge that we gain. What would be the use of this knowledge if it were to perish together with the physical body? If this enrichment of experience were to become a corpse like the physical body through which it was experienced, how would all the various stages of the living beings have come about? How would the stages of the higher or lower forms of life ever have come about? Even though a human being has not experienced initiation, has not received cosmic consciousness or experienced their own immortality, they will eventually be forced to accept – purely theoretically or on the basis of intelligence – reincarnation and the living beings' eternal existence. If they deny this existence they are being illogical because they are thereby denying all the facts that surround them in this area. If they accept the beings' immortality beyond the terrestrial lives, they are being logical because they are merely reinforcing what is revealed by Nature in all areas. The denial of immortality can be based only on imagination and is therefore unreal, whereas the recognition of immortality is based on living reality; it is an acknowledgment of the truth or revelation within which human beings in all areas live, move and have their being.

6. The small and the large cycle

This makes it clear to us that we are in the midst of a great cosmic path, a cycle that ordinary terrestrial human beings see only a very little part of. The little part that they see is merely what constitutes their present terrestrial life. And as they cannot remember anything from their previous terrestrial lives, they do not believe that they have existed before and they see their present existence as constituting the whole of their existence. In this way they end up having a completely distorted image of the whole of existence. They believe that animals are a completely different kind of being from themselves, just as they also totally deny their kinship with plants. Indeed the whole of the being's eternal existence is an absolute distortion of the living truth. Living beings relate to their eternal existence in the same way that they would if, in their present physical life, they were to completely lose all memory of all the years prior to their present year. Imagine if you could remember only one year back in time. You would deny ever having lived or existed in the previous years. You would regard all the beings that are younger than yourself as belonging to different races. You would look upon children as you today look upon animals, completely denying your kinship with them. Just imagine how absurd existence would be. You are, however, fortunate enough to be able to remember the whole cycle right back to your birth or the starting point, and can therefore be more in contact with the truth. But you live in an even greater cycle that is so immense in terms of your memory that you cannot even remember one year back in the "year" of this great cycle.

The manuscript, which Martinus wrote as the script of the beginning of a lecture, concludes with the following headings:

The religious view of the small cycle and the religious view of the large cycle.
The position of religion – on the threshold of a cosmic spring.

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Original Danish title: Det lille og det store spiralkredsløb. Incomplete manuscript to a lecture given at the Martinus Institute on Sunday 29^th February 1948. Section headings by Ole Therkelsen have been approved by the council of the Martinus Institute 1^st April 2005. Published for the first time in the Danish edition of Kosmos no. 4, 2006. Translated by Andrew Brown, 2006.

Article ID: M1285
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 3, 2006

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