M0320
On my Style and my Language
by Martinus

... Since all philosophy, wisdom or spiritual science belong to areas where normal language does not offer sufficient terminology and therefore will always have to be expressed through an indirect use of the language or by words that were meant to express details in the material world, it is certain that the style of a description of spiritual problems will never measure up to the style of a description of materials things, no matter who the author may be or how brilliant he is said to be until sometime in the future when language has become so developed that is affords the same richness of terminology for the former kind of description as it does today for the latter. This is also the reason that the criticism of the works of philosophers or spiritual researchers often refers to them as being "obscure", "heavy", "difficult" or "complex". And why should Livets Bog (The Book of Life) be any exception? Like all other people who want to describe the spiritual world, the author is dependent on the scantiness of terms that dominate the area in question. And like any other conscientious and honest portrayer of the highest problems, I of course had to resort to expressions or words that I believed to be the very best so that they would ensure the largest possible exclusion of misunderstandings, whether or not they were in harmony with the beauty or rhythm of the style. This naturally caused situations where it would be broken. But this, however, is of minor importance if only the exclusion of the misunderstandings of the deeper meaning of the description would be ensured to a higher degree. Obviously such breaking of the rhythm and beauty of the style is bound to displease the superficial reader who is unable to see the depth of the true meaning of the description, and to whom it is in fact not very interesting. And it is from these kinds of beings that we meet the unrelenting and cold criticism that entirely reveals the originator's lack of insight into and understanding of the true nature of the problem. But the developed or advanced seeker after truth has an entirely different attitude. To him the style, rhythm, printing errors or the like are entirely unimportant. He is filled with a one-hundred percent desire to get to the core behind the style and the words. He sees that only this is absolutely essential. He knows that gold is gold, whether it is found in a bag made of sackcloth or one of silk. He is not one of the fools who care more about the bag, the packaging, than its contents. As a result of this attitude, he will in fact get to the very contents, the gold. And with the same attitude to Livets Bog, he will certainly also here get to the true contents: the highest analyses of existence. If the opposite were the case he would achieve nothing, and see nothing important. The beams from a transfigured existence that radiate from the book are overshadowed by the black cloud of criticism of the said book, which he himself radiates. And the divine light will to him be more or less banalities, nonsense, fantasies, clichés, grammatical imperfections, and so on. To him, Livets Bog is a closed book.
"Opening" the book of life is therefore not just a matter of opening it in the physical sense, browsing through it and "reading" it. In spite of this, to such a reader it can only be an absolutely closed book. It can be truly opened only by he who has attained such a desire for spiritual knowledge that he will not be halted in his seeking for it by style or form. His consciousness must be so spiritually advanced that these realities have become such an unimportant issue that he does not want to waste time with any kind of criticism on them. Only he who has this attitude can hope to open Livets Bog to some degree and meet the deeper meaning that lies hidden behind the text and style that is visible to everybody. Any seeker after truth or spiritual researcher who does not have the attitude described here and is therefore more occupied with the style or the outer form is in reality not a spiritual researcher but a researcher into style or outer form. To such a being, the outer form that is associated with Livets Bog may sometimes represent an insurmountable obstacle, since all its energy is expressed in criticism of any minor technical faults, grammatical errors or the like that may be part of the said form. Not until the deeper meaning of Livets Bog becomes the main thing, and the style and form become a secondary issue to the reader will he experience the "the holy spirit" through this book.
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Excerpt from Martinus' article Fortolkning af Livets Bog: Fortalen (Interpretation of the Book of Life: Preface) published in the Danish edition of Kosmos nos. 2-8, 1933. Translated by Mogens K. Bech.
Article ID: M0320
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 2, 2003
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
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