M3023
On our neighbours in our microcosmos, mesocosmos and macrocosmos
Question: Who is my neighbour? Is my neighbour only my fellow human being or is it also the cells or micro-beings living in my body? And why should I love these neighbours?
Answer: If the term "neighbour" is to be understood literally, it is an indication of place. Our neighbour is thus in this connection the being who, in physical space, is closest to us. A being can, as we know, be so close to us that it touches our very body, just as it can also be thousands of miles away. When it is said that one should love one's neighbour as oneself, it literally means that one should first and foremost love the being or beings that are within the scope of our ability to observe, and which we therefore cannot avoid experiencing or sensing. We cannot directly perceive or sense beings that live thousands of miles away. Their general condition cannot be as clear to us as the general condition or fate of those beings that are just before our eyes, ears and other senses. Every living being, whether plant, animal or human being, within the direct scope of our sensory ability, that is the focal point or the general object for the love that the law of neighbourly love commands.
As the known fellow-beings, that is plants, animals and human beings, are not the only existing living beings in close proximity to us but are merely the inhabitants of a particular zone, namely the "mesocosmos", these beings, as one begins to perceive and understand their presence, will be included in the term "neighbour". And the question of neighbourly love will thus become important here too. These beings must also be loved; if the opposite were the case darkness or Hell would break out here too. This is not so difficult to understand when one here witnesses that it is a matter of all the millions of living beings, that is cells, molecules and so on, of which our physical body consists. We have in direct connection and interaction with these micro-beings through our own relationship to this body, which is the residence or universe of these beings. We already know that if we eat the wrong food and drink the wrong drinks; if we do not get sufficient sleep and overexert ourselves with hard work, our general condition suffers. Diseases, poisonings, the formation of tumours, nervous breakdowns and so on rage within our bodies. Just as there is war and Armageddon, where we do not love one another, so too there is war and Armageddon, pain and destruction where we do not love or are not a blessing for the micro-beings within our organism. It is therefore absolutely necessary also to love one's micro-beings as we love ourselves. The beings' relation to the micro-beings will thus be a very urgent link in the new spiritually scientific world morality, even though it has been almost totally ignored in the traditional religious precepts of the old world impulse.
But beyond the microcosmos and mesocosmos there exists yet another cosmic space for living beings. This space is called the "macrocosmos". We have a very important interchange with the inhabitants of this cosmos too. In this case it is particularly the macro-being which has the Earth as its organism that we are connected to. This Earth-being, as well as the other macro-beings, live with a sensory perception of time and space of quite other dimensions than our own time- and space-dimensional appearance. The minutes and hours of these beings will mean thousands or millions of years for our senses. We cannot therefore consciously correspond with them directly. Their sphere of life-experience lies just as far beyond our own sphere of life as this lies beyond that of our micro-beings. But even though we cannot consciously exchange thoughts with or speak to our own or any other macro-being, there all the same exists a way in which we can get into direct, fully day-conscious contact with the existing highest creative life in the macrocosmos. All macro-beings, as well as meso- and microcosmic beings, are all organs in one great being. As this great being has thus all existing living beings as its organs, instruments for sensing and speaking, it can correspond not only in all the languages of the world but in the languages of all planets and macro-beings as well as of all existing micro-beings. That it has thereby also the ability to correspond with every single being ought to be a matter of course. So this paternal being speaks to people by means of people. It speaks to the animals by means of the animals. It speaks to criminals by means of criminals, just as it speaks to saints by means of saints. It can get on to the same wavelength as everyone and thereby get into contact with them. It is this being we know by the term "Godhead". When a being prays or cries to God this prayer or cry is heard by one or another physical or psychic being, who, in accordance with the above, is God's sensory instrument, and the being will certainly always be helped. But sometimes the help is only psychic, and the being does not always notice that its prayers have been answered. As this eternal Godhead is thus our absolute, vitally essential neighbour, one here understands the eternal law of love, in the form in which it was passed down to us from earlier times, and in the form in which it, as spiritual science, will be handed on from us unchanged to coming times:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. This is the fulfilment of all the laws.
-----------------------------------
Question no. 23 First published in Danish in Kontaktbrev no. 18, 1951. Translated by Mary McGovern, 1992.
Article ID: M3023
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 3, 1990 and no. 5, 1992.
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
You are welcome to make a link to the above article stating the copyright information and the source reference. You are also welcome to quote from it in accordance with the Copyright Act. The article may be reproduced only with the written permission of the Martinus Institute.