The following introduction is not written by Martinus himself, but intended as an introduction to his own explanations. Click on the symbol to see it in an enlarged version!
When life is a mystery
Cosmic unconsciousness
– Symbol No. 5
Life is a puzzle for those who do not fully know themselves.
Knowledge of the physical world and our own organism is not enough to give the answers to the eternal questions: Where from? Where to? Why?
Intolerance – symptom of ignorance
Intolerance
– Symbol No. 3
Ignorance affects not just our experience of life and fate. It also makes it difficult to understand others’ ideas and concepts when they diverge too greatly from our own. Intolerance can easily arise between individuals, groups of people and nations (the two star figures) with conflict and war to follow (the world in flames).
To understand one’s fellow-beings, one must first be able to understand oneself. But this understanding – the solution to the mystery of life – requires an eternal world picture!
All living beings are immortal
The living being 1
– Symbol No. 6
”Behind” our physical organism is to be found the invisible consciousness, that is to say, our thoughts, feelings and conceptions. The consciousness is regulated by wishes, desire and will. Behind these is to be found life itself, our eternal infinite I.
The Creator
The eternal living part of us is not material. It is not composed of smaller parts, as is all that is created and transitory. It is indivisible, unlimited and eternal. The white triangle at the top symbolises the source of the created – our innermost creator.
The creative ability
The eternal ability of the I to make visible its unlimited nature in time and space is symbolised with the violet area in the middle.
The created
The lowest part with the vertical coloured fields symbolises our temporal tools for experiencing, that is to say, our organism and consciousness, which we develop from life to life.
The created is primarily of a spiritual nature, the physical body is just a temporary tool for the experiencing of life in the material world. We live thus in two worlds, but are at the moment only conscious in one – the physical world. When we sleep we experience primarily on the spiritual plane, when we are awake primarily on the physical plane. The upper parts of the symbol are indicating, in The Third Testament, the super consciousness and the lower part the sub consciousness, which consists of day- and night-consciousness.
The universe is an eternal, infinite living being
The triune principle – Symbols Nos. 8, 9 and 10
Life is formed as a universal, eternal principle which is the same everywhere. God and the eternal children of God share the same basic analysis – an eternal triune principle. When we know ourselves, we experience ourselves as one with the total eternal and infinite living universe, that is to say, God. The circle form symbolises that God and the sons of God are eternally united.
The white circle
Symbolises this I – our eternal innermost essence and fixed point. It is the originator of all creation and change in the universe. God is to be found in everything and reveals Himself through everything. The eternal I is symbolised here with a circle. We all have the same Father. We, all without exception, live, move and have our being in God.
The violet disk
In the same way as the holes in a spherical shaped lampshade spread one and the same light in many rays, the mother energy (violet) appears to divide up ’the one’ (eternal and infinite) into ’the many’ (time and space).
The coloured circle
Symbolises the eternally created, and eternally changing temporal in life. Here are consciousness and the material world.
The three eternal principles, the Creator, the creative ability and the created form an indivisible principle, as is seen in the next symbol. With the eternal aspect combined with the temporal aspect we can begin to see the divine plan of creation.
The divine world plan
The eternal world picture – the living being II, the eternal Godhead and the eternal sons of God
– Symbol No. 11
The eternal plan of creation
All living beings have, just as God, an eternal I, which survives every created thing. As we are immortal, we can take advantage of all our experiences – life after life. All experiences show themselves – in the final reckoning – to be useful and beneficial for all and everyone. The divine plan of creation unfolds itself as completely loving, logical and methodical.
The basic law of eternal life
To be able to create experience requires contrast. The greatest contrasts in life within consciousness are pleasure and pain or good and evil. To be able to experience the one, one must also experience the other. Seen from the perspective of eternity, pain and suffering are an unpleasant good. We survive, as already mentioned, all mental contrasts and ultimately derive advantage from them. In the physical world contrast is created with darkness and unpleasantness. In the spiritual world we experience the contrast with light and universal love.
The stage of life
This eternal experience happens via 6 principles of existence – the plant kingdom (red colour), the animal kingdom (orange), the true human kingdom (yellow), the kingdom of wisdom (green), the divine world (blue) and the kingdom of bliss (light indigo). Here occurs life’s eternal interaction between God (the white star
and the radiating field) and the sons of God (the outermost circle).
The plant kingdom
It is our satiation with the light and desire for contrast which leads us from the all-loving light zones to the physical world. In the plant kingdom begins the adaptation to life in the sphere of the killing principle. The new consciousness here goes through its most primitive phase having only the ability to faintly sense the difference between pleasant and unpleasant.
The animal kingdom
Nature’s effect on the plant being, through thousands of years, stimulates the creation of organs for day-consciousness experience on the physical plane. Thus the plant being becomes an animal (orange). Adaptation to the killing principle can clearly be noticed in the evolution from plant to animal organism with attack and defence organs. The animal must either overcome or flee from its enemy. Its organism constitutes food and it must therefore protect itself with all means. The instinct for self-preservation gets stimulated.
The transition from animal to human being
The terrestrial human being is still partly an animal and lives therefore still to a high degree under the animal conditions of life – might is right. Even though the humane world religions for thousands of years have stimulated human beings away from the use of the killing principle, the humane ability is still of a far younger date in evolution.
It requires time to develop from selfishness and the survival instinct to the opposite – the loving, forgiving disposition. But the process occurs automatically as ”we reap what we sow”. The moral of killing leads to suffering for us ourselves which creates a longing after the contrast, the humane. With time arises a susceptibility for the ideal of universal love and for an intellectual explanation.
The human kingdom
The purpose of The Third Testament’s eternal world picture is to guide humanity through the last stages of the transition from animal to human. We are on the point of being born into a new kingdom. Our intellect which was developed in the fight for existence makes it possible now to understand more and more advanced conceptions of ourselves and the world. With the harmonising of heart and reason the infinite cosmic horizon of consciousness gradually opens up. Then we have become ”finished human beings in God’s image”, and are dwellers in the true human kingdom (yellow), where universal love is practised.
The spiritual kingdoms
From here the journey continues through the following eternal zones of love (green, blue and light indigo), where the eternal spiral cycle culminates in the contrast of light and happiness.
A universal world plan
The eternal world plan applies to large as well as to small beings. The physical universe is built up with life within life, upwards and downwards into infinity. Everything is well fitted together as cogwheels in the works of a clock.
The universe’s myriad of living beings in micro- meso- and marcocosmos have all the same simple, eternal fundamental analysis. The outer differences just reflect variations over life’s 6 principles of existence.
Our macrobeing, the Earth, is also on the way towards cosmic consciousness (the small star figure). Its ”cosmic birth” within the next 3000 years forms the transition to the perfect human kingdom, the kingdom of God on the Earth. Henceforth it is right and not might which settles all matters.
It is not accidental that Martinus has chosen to place the following two symbols on the front and back covers of his work.
Darkness
The symbol on the back cover is called: Through the initiation of darkness – Hell or Armageddon
– Symbol No. 19
The killing principle
The large orange arc and the sword from the left symbolise a dark action which is happening to the individual (the white triangle). Here the response is with the principle of revenge (the sword), which we know as formulated in the Old Testament – an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
We reap as we sow from life to life
With cosmic sight it can be seen how we ourselves create our fate from life to life (the orange rectangles), interposed with resting periods in the spiritual worlds (the yellow rectangles).
The consequences of the killing principle
War, political and religious conflict, poverty, illness and distress are due to ignorance about the eternal life and the law of karma. One believes that one can sow war and reap peace.
First after the harvesting of our sufferings is born an understanding of life’s law of love ”love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you”.
Meat eating is also an example that human beings ”know not what they do”. All the sufferings we cause other living beings, large as well as small, return to ourselves. The volcano symbolises natural catastrophes – and shows that we are not wholly protected in relation to our macrobeing, the Earth. We ourselves constitute a macrobeing in relation to our organism. If we provide it with poor conditions so are we born in outlying nature areas which are correspondingly dangerous. But even under the initiation of darkness, in ”the killing principle’s sphere”, we are surrounded by love (the radiant halo). The receptive soul can always find a guiding light which shows the way out of the darkness.
Light
The symbol on the front cover is called: The fully-evolved human being in God’s image after His likeness
– Symbol No. 23
The life-giving principle
Here is illustrated the New Testament’s moral principle of complete forgiveness – the goal of evolution. The two clasped hands symbolise that the loving person meets hostility (the left orange arc) with friendship (the right yellow arc) and thereby creates a light and joyful future for itself and its neighbour in this and future lives (the rectangle areas become more and more yellow coloured). Every experience of suffering makes us gradually more compassionate, until we only have the heart to do the good, like the Christ being in the symbol.
The cosmic life view
The lowest part of the two symbols with the black background illustrates the cosmic life view with many terrestrial lives, the law of karma and evolution from animal to human. We see that the Third Testament supports the New Testament’s moral principle.
The goal with the many terrestrial lives is to teach us to “Love your God above all things and your neighbour as yourself”. We have then become “human beings in God’s image after his likeness”.
We reap what we sow
The eternity body
– Symbol No. 16
Here is symbolised our cosmic radiated eternity body. Always in perfect balance (the cross) unaffected by death and mutilation of the temporarily created spiritual and physical bodies. All energy moves in law-bound cycles. Here is shown how every thought and action moves in small and large cycles back to ourselves (the triangle).
The eternal now
The fate arcs of the living being
– Symbol No. 18
On the symbol we see how the fate waves connect one life together with the following. We live currently at the same time in the past, as well as the present and the future. Our actions today (the area in the middle under the triangle, the I) determines the quality of our future lives (green area) – just as our consciousness and organism today are the consequence of previous thoughts and actions. But we only come to experience the unpleasantness which we still can bear to inflict on others. The principle “The forgiveness of sins” is a true reality.
The physical organism is just a replaceable tool for the experience of life in the physical world. When this tool has been worn out – by natural or unnatural causes – it is no longer fit for experiencing life and is replaced by a process we call death. Death is in reality a birth onto the spiritual plane, where we are recharged with light experiences and rest, until we again incarnate. On the spiritual plane death is not to be found.
The process of reincarnation
The act of copulation or the spirit of God in the darkness
– Symbol No. 34
However it was not easy for people of earlier times to understand the idea of reincarnation. In the Bible we can read for example that Nicodemus asked Jesus the question: “How can a man be born when he is old?” It took thousands of years before humans were sufficiently mature intellectually to be able to accept such analyses. The large lowermost circles symbolise a man, on the left, and a woman, on the right, in the culmination of the act of copulation. Under this temporary experience of bliss (the blazing fire) the partners are on the wavelength with the higher vibrations of the spiritual plane. Thus is created contact (the indigo lines) to an individual on the spiritual plane (topmost circle) whose fate fits in with these parents. The condition of falling in love brightens the sphere of darkness and guarantees at the same time rebirth into it.
This condition creates however conflict and rivalry for possession of the opposite sex. For an out and out male or female being universal love is organically impossible. Real neighbourly love is not a question of will, but concerns the being’s sympathetic talent.
Christ is the example of the perfect loving and forgiving state. Despite his culminating suffering on the cross he could pray for his executioners: “forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The ability to love one’s neighbour regardless of gender rests upon an organic foundation – on the correlation between the masculine and feminine poles of the living being. There are cosmic causes behind sexuality, with its paths and detours forward towards the finished human being state.
The spiritual parent-principle
The principle of world redemption
– Symbol No. 2
Humankind is not left alone under the evolution from animal (orange) to human being (yellow). Just as children are lovingly cared for and brought up until they can look after themselves, so have humans guidance from above through a spiritual parent-principle – the principle of world redemption.
The Godhead (white star) leads all living beings onwards and upwards with help of this spiritual parent-principle (the rays). Under evolution from lower to higher consciousness (the step figure) we have the ideals and precepts which ingeniously fit the step in evolution in question.
The spirit of God upon the face of the waters
The spirit of God upon the face of the waters
– Symbol No. 1
God’s almighty and all-loving consciousness permeates throughout the universe with its perfect manifestation and creation (the blazing cross). The universe is living and thinking! Everything is pervaded with life and thought. These thoughts appear as cosmic world impulses, which provide the foundation for different cultural epochs. The double circle symbolises the Earth and its peoples. It is in contact with three cosmic thought or world impulses:
Lowermost – primitive human beings’ consciousness and culture.
Middle – the next impulse gives nourishment to people who are at the stage of being believers and stimulates the cultural manifestations of humanity during that period. The traditional understanding of the Old and the New Testament belong under this old world impulse.
Topmost – materialistic and spiritual science, internationalism, modern art, architecture and music as well as unhappy marriages, mental illness, sexual abnormalities and political upheavals are witness to a steadily accelerating process of spiritual evolution – at the start marked by irreligiousness.
But this materialism is only an initial phenomenon. With neighbourly love’s intellectual basis in the form of spiritual science, the conflict between belief and science will gradually disappear and humanity will again, with hearts as well as reason, have contact with the spiritual side of life.
The following three symbols show how the evolution of consciousness from animal to finished human being is reflected in the evolution from nationalism to internationalism.
The way to the kingdom of peace 1: Nationalism
The unfinished human kingdom
– Symbol No. 24
In the animal kingdom might is right. This talent has through practice become automatic in the animal kingdom and permeates the relations between peoples and nations at all levels.
The world is divided into nations (the various red fields), which collectively monopolise nature’s wealth. The governments in the various countries (the arrows) strive principally after economic and military might. They still practice to a high degree the killing principle in the form of revenge and punishment (the orange stars) in their external as well as internal judicial practice.
We shall now see how the world is guided forward to true humanism and peace (the rays and the white star at the top).
The way to the kingdom of peace 2: Consequences
The karma of mankind
– Symbol No. 25
The actions of nations are also subject to the law of karma. The animal tendencies strengthen a special spiritual radiation (the thick orange crust) which attracts a corresponding dark karma (the flames). We reap what we sow.
The fields to the right and the left symbolise the different quality of this karma. On the left, sudden “death”, which can happen as the result of our killing of animals and other individuals. On the right, slow suffering karma in the form of life-long sufferings, disablement, illness etc.
The five-pointed star symbolises the religious principle whereby God guides humans from these conditions to universal love, via humane religions (the yellow field) and eventually the pure spiritual science (white field). We see already many humane results of this process – welfare, art, architecture, literature, science and technology (the circle’s blue coloured field).
The way to the kingdom of peace 3: The united states of the world, “one shepherd and one flock”
The perfect human kingdom of the future
– Symbol No. 26
The goal of evolution on the Earth
Through the teachings of Christianity we have learnt about “a new heaven and a new Earth”; that a peaceful and loving kingdom shall arise on the Earth.
The Third Testament confirms that this will happen – not miraculously from the one day to the next, but via gradual evolution.
In the coming perfect kingdom of love on Earth the nations have become regions each with their distinctive character (the green fields). Previous religious ideas (yellow and orange) have been replaced with the knowledge of God and the course of evolution (white colour). This knowledge unites humanity in all their differences and is therefore the spiritual foundation for the kingdom of love on Earth.
The world government (the yellow sun) will initially be supervised by the highest representatives in their own special field of competence, being chosen by free election. Eventually this government can be made up of cosmic consciousness beings (the blue star).
Other factors include:
• Disarmament. With a one world state all challenges become of an internal political nature. At the start a world police force will guarantee internal law and order.
• An open supreme law and judicial system which recognises the difference between criminality and abnormality and acknowledges the path of evolution and therefore only applies humane reformatory methods.
• The abolition of money and the private ownership of common natural resources. The principle of business, which in the past made it possible, perfectly lawfully, to obtain by deception something of greater value for something of lesser value, is replaced by the divine business principle – equal value for equal value.
Receipts for work done as a means of payment will be introduced.
• A fund to pay for the periods of childhood, old age and sickness.
• Machines free humanity from the curse, “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”. We have time for the development of mind, art and human culture.
• Right prevails over might in all areas. The world state is guided by intellectualised feeling and humanised intelligence – neighbourly love.
The words in the Bible about one shepherd and one flock – one people with one God and one true religion – are thus fulfilled here on Earth.
We shall now see the difference between the materialistic and the cosmic eternal world picture.
The materialistic or dead world picture
The materialistic or incomplete world picture
– Symbol No. 22A
The prevailing contemporary view about the universe is a cult of death. More and more people see only the materialistic aspect of reality. With this materialistic perspective we can create brilliant practical, technical aids, but it gives us only little, not to say any, knowledge about the living and the psychic sides of life. Many believe that life is identical with matter: one believes also in death. With this physical perspective upon life it seems of course naive to pray, and this function has therefore nearly completely stagnated.
The living spiritual universe
The eternal, cosmic, organic connection between God and the son of God II
– Symbol No. 22
We see that the question mark with respect to the existence of spiritual worlds is replaced by the symbols for our superconsciousness, that is to say, the eternal immaterial I (triangle) and its equally eternal ability to create. The spiritual worlds are taken into account and marked with the yellow, green, blue and light indigo colours. They constitute God’s primary consciousness. All the beings here have been through the culmination of darkness in the physical world (red and orange colours). So is maintained God’s consciousness in eternal culminating omnipotence and love.
The finished human being in God’s image is God’s highest tool for steering and leading the formation of fate in the underlying as yet imperfect physical worlds.
Prayer
The eternal, cosmic, organic connection between God and the son of God I
– Symbol No. 21
Spiritual dialogue
The symbol to the right expresses again the cosmic perspective on the universe, that is to say, God. We find us, all, in the centre of this all-embracing organism’s consciousness, and are always unshakeably organically connected to God. So therefore we can always communicate with the spiritual world – also when we find ourselves in a physical organism.
Prayer’s process of development
This dialogue with the spiritual world develops from the animal’s cry out to the unknown, all the way forward to the conscious dialogue with God, which we know from Christ, who said, “You shall pray and never be tired”. The uppermost drawings on the left symbolise the evolution from the worship of many gods, monotheism, the atheistic state and forward to the finished human being’s day-conscious contact with God. The equal green and yellow colours behind the triangle symbolise this human being’s perfect balance between intelligence and feeling.
How does the communication happen?
The lowermost drawings on the left symbolise the spiritual guardian angels, God’s listening organs, which pick up even the slightest sigh on the physical plane and arrange replies and help (the yellow triangles). To the degree that our abilities reach, we can all act as guardian angels for our fellow beings in between incarnations. Here is shown different aspects of the unbroken interaction with the spiritual plane – prayer, creative human beings gaining inspiration, the use of mediums and the day-conscious perfect communication of the finished human being at one with God.
One with the Father
The Third Testament explains life as a dialogue between the eternal, all-loving and omnipresent Father and his likewise eternal son/daughter – in the inner as well as the outer. The unselfish thought climate makes humans one with God. With the words, “not my will, but thy will be done” the praying person becomes one with God’s will and experiences therefore the high psychic magic of prayer. God answers all prayers via outer events, new understanding or streams of vitality into the consciousness. With this help to take “the rough with the smooth” there gradually develops the state of universal love.
The finished developed human being is in harmony with the whole of life and can therefore say as Christ, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
© The cosmic symbols of Martinus are copyright protected by The Institute of Martinus Spiritual Science, Copenhagen, Denmark. All rights reserved.