Martinus writes about Christianity with and without reincarnation in Livets Bog 3, 870:
But if one denies reincarnation, even in these days one is taking part in a continuation of the world redeemer’s crucifixion and thereby contributing towards a perversion or falsification of his genuine world-saving wisdom. Without evolution this wisdom would have absolutely no value. Were it not for the fact that one is ‘born again’ and is able to continue through this new life to develop and continue to have experiences leading to more and more knowledge and so be able to put right what one has done wrong, one could not possibly come to ‘reap’ what one has ‘sown’. To ‘see’ God’s kingdom as well as to ‘enter therein’, as Jesus actually told Nicodemus would happen, would be an absolute impossibility without reincarnation. It was clearly obvious to the world redeemer that admittance as a perfect being to ‘God’s kingdom’ was not to be gained through mere ‘clemency’ or ‘absolution’. Otherwise he would have occupied himself solely with ‘absolution’. He would have had no logical reason whatsoever for spending all the time, energy and effort producing precepts, injunctions and ideals for his disciples and for all the other seekers after wisdom, as well as in his sermons to the people. Indeed, what would be the use of all that revelation, if it were only to produce precepts that no terrestrial human being could fulfil, and if ‘mercy’ and ‘absolution’ were actually the crucial factors? No, as we have seen, the world redeemer knew full well that the ideals could not be realized in a single earthly life, but that their fulfilment, on the contrary, would gradually become a reality for each individual over the course of a number of lives as the fruit of his own desires, practice, will and experience. And it is this being's meeting with the highest fruit of his previous lives that Jesus expressly defines as the home-coming of the ‘prodigal son’, that is, his meeting with the Father. At this point the son of God has realized his mistakes and thereby come to the correct recognition and attitude towards his Father and can look upon his own life and eternal identity as a son of God. He has now become the master of matter and consequently of life and death. He now no longer ‘sins’(makes mistakes), but acts perfectly; he is sexually impartial and hence has become all-loving.
The Old…, The New… and The Third Testament
"The world epoch of Christianity is made up of three great stages, in which the first constitutes The Old Testament and Judaism and the second The New Testament and Christianity, during which the material state is developed. The third stage is The Third Testament or spiritual science, which will provide the basis for human beings' further development and guarantee that human beings within this epoch will become one with God."(1) "But first we must go through a certain amount of catastrophe or an Armageddon."(2) "In order to learn or to receive instruction one has to possess a certain amount of personally experienced material that can give rise in one's consciousness to a need to know "why.""(3) The fundamental sign that enables us to recognise "Doomsday" is therefore "the second coming" of Christ.(4) "Nowadays initiation takes place in the "pyramid of everyday life", and spiritual teachers are being replaced by spiritual science that is freely available to all seeking human beings."(5) "The future will rest on science, science and yet more science, the science of all phenomena."(6) "Through schools, universities and colleges the highest ideals, precepts and intimations of world redemption will become living facts for people in general."(7) "Spiritual science is not spiritual science if it does not in every detail provide confirmation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount."(8) "Anyone who seeks to show human beings another way to peace and perfection other than the road of absolute neighbourly love will fall into the category of the "false prophets" that Christ warned mankind against."(9) "We can therefore see that the last stage in the Christian world epoch, the new world culture, is already built into the previous cultures."(10)
Mankind's eternal life path
"The cosmic analyses show seeking human beings where they are in their eternal life path and why it is that they are precisely there."(11) "Terrestrial mankind is therefore travelling from darkness to light, just as it has previously come from this light down into darkness."(12) "The unfinished living beings are only on the physical plane in order to "learn to think", that is to create thoughts and thereby create "consciousness". They cannot learn to think on the spiritual planes…"(13) "Animals are therefore sleeping beings that have to be woken up."(14) "…the way a being exercises its will can only be changed through it gaining experience."(15) "No one can avoid making mistakes in those areas where they have no knowledge. And were it not possible to make the mistakes they would never acquire knowledge."(16) "Wars are an animal's expression of power. The strong can subjugate the less strong, but that is not peace."(17) "What they sow in victory, they reap in defeat and the experience of defeat brings a new seed and a new harvest."(18) "It is this culmination of the killing principle's expression of mutilation, death and destruction that we witness in the terrestrial human beings' ability to use the atom bomb for its murderous ends."(19) "Is it not conceivable that those that come with atom bombs will perish with atom bombs? Is not this monstrosity precisely the principle of the sword multiplied a thousand or a million times over?(20) "Just as it is possible for a being to see in an ordinary mirror a physical image of himself, it is also possible for a being, through the combined effects of nature, that is to say the surroundings and the fellow beings, to see a mental mirrored image of himself."(21) "If you protect other beings you will yourself be protected. If you are cold and egoistic towards other living beings, you will yourself eventually meet egoism and coldness in your fellow beings."(22) "All experience of pain and suffering will on the spiritual or mental plane be transformed into yet another ability in the consciousness to form, not only with one's intelligence but also with one's feeling or psychologically, an image in one's innermost "self" of the sufferings that one can see that one's neighbour is to some extent tortured by."(23) "…so when one takes care to do nothing other than good, one cannot be given darkness in return."(24)
Intellectual freedom
"… the road to the development of all intellectuality and culture goes through the freedom to think, the freedom to criticise, which means pointing out what is missing or is wrong, or the freedom to put forward ideas that do not precisely fit within the authorised horizon or what has become officially recognised practice…"(25) "…when one viewpoint is accepted by many beings it becomes a force, quite irrespective of whether it is logical or illogical, of whether it is real or unreal, of whether it is true or untrue."(26) "When faced with facts everything must and will capitulate. Facts are the truth. And the truth is the way to life. To cover up the facts will therefore be the same as to block the beings' journey towards the light."(27) "Humility is not a servile attitude towards one's neighbour created as a result of an inferiority complex, it is the pure, actual and absolutely normal recognition of one's own imperfection or mental limitations."(28)
The art of living, prayer and universal love
"Our entire physical organism, from the organs to the very smallest particles, is an organisation of myriads of living beings."(29) Many people are tremendously cruel towards their own organism, and they will have to pay the penalty for this."(30) "These beings also need to be loved otherwise darkness and Hell will also break loose here"(31) "The power of thought should create joy and the urge to live."(32) "Our own behaviour can cause a deep cleft between us and the divine world plan, and this we experience as suffering or pain."(33) "Human beings are well protected even though it can sometimes seem rather difficult."(34) "All the darkness is nothing other than completely logical processes that are needed in order that one can overcome darkness and have a consciousness like God's."(35) "One should just pray to God, also even though you think that there is no need to."(36) "The person that in every situation can say, "Father, not my will, but thy will be done" will be given the courage to embrace life and the ability to come through difficulties and dark states."(37) "These beings have therefore seen that placing one's will under God's will can never in any case be identical to a servile subjugation and handing over of one's life or one's individuality…"(38) "Love is not just caressing, and it is not loving to be naively foolish."(39) "An ocean of brilliant ideas surround human beings and will stream into their consciousness as they come onto a wavelength with the keynote of the universe, which is to be a joy and a blessing for living beings, and which in the old religious language is expressed as "the Holy Spirit"."(40) ""Art" is the ability to incarnate "high intellectuality" into matter."(41) "Within this providence there are beings that in particular guide art and inspire the many different kinds of artists, whether in painting or in music and song…"(42) ""Art" is actually in itself nothing other than "cosmic life"."(43) "To the extent that the being is loving, so nature begins to open its well-springs. The being realises not only how many things in its everyday existence form themselves in its favour without it having set these things on the stage itself… It gradually begins to be filled with a feeling of gratitude or a need to thank the invisible forces that are thus more and more openly in its favour."(44) "We therefore see that it is a question of training oneself to see with "God's eyes". This leads inevitably to one becoming a sun that shines and spreads its warmth over the surroundings. One has within oneself the immense desire that "I will be a joy and a blessing to everything that I come into contact with". – When we have reached the stage of having this will, the Godhead begins to be alive in our consciousness."(45) "Providence is overwhelmingly supplied with the means to permit every single human being to reach this high culture independently of the others."(46)
One sex, one religion, one God and one mankind
"Terrestrial human beings have a certain goal that their innermost longings and will wishes to reach, what I call the "great birth" or the experience of "cosmic consciousness". This is the same as the state of the true human being towards which conscience points the way."(47) "The previously so strongly contrasted beings, the "man" and the "woman" are now evened out so that they no longer constitute two sexes. There is therefore no longer any opposite sex for these beings. They all belong to the same sex. The object of their love can thereby only be their "own new sex".(48) "By loving our "neighbour" the "image of God" becomes visible. And a still, heavenly voice vibrates from this image into the innermost part of us saying, "I am your eternal father that you over the millennia have sought and whose most lowly servant you have asked to be. What you do towards your neighbour you do towards me. If you love me, my spirit will shine and sparkle about you bringing wellbeing and joy to everything that you touch. Wherever you go on the Earth blessings, beauty and joy will sparkle and shine in your footsteps"."(49)
Eternity
The "created structures" in the universe "gain the power of their movements and functioning exclusively from the eternal structures, which exist under their own power."(50) ""Eternity" is not something that is "outside" the living being, it is the living being's own deepest component, it is the axis, the foundation around which "time" and "life" move."(51) "The living being contains within itself the solution to the secrets of the universe."(52) "The new method of research will increasingly be based on the individual's knowledge of himself or the knowledge of his own super-physical nature, as in this super-physical nature lies revealed the whole mystery of life."(53) "As the "I" in all living beings together constitutes God's I, they are all identical to God, even though every single individual due to its structure as an individual can rightfully only be called a "son of God"."(54) "…the living being is a picture of the universe itself. It is a copy of the Godhead. It confirms the biblical account of Adam's identity as a human being in God's image."(55)
The quotations above:
1. The world epoch of Christianity
2. The new culture
3. Livets Bog (Hereafter: "LB") 3, 919
4. Doomsday
5. The virgin birth
6. Concerning the creation of Livets Bog
7. LB 3, 879
8. The world epoch of Christianity
9. LB 6, 2009
10. The world epoch of Christianity
11. The Godhead and the love of life
12. The road of life
13. Intellectualised Christianity, 236
14. LB 1, 172
15. LB 6, 2285
16. LB 6, 2129
17. World salvation
18. The commander in chief
19. The eternal world picture (Hereafter: "DEV") 2, 19.14
20. Cosmic consciousness: Mental sovereignty
21. LB6, 2128
22. LB6, 2371
23. LB7, 2408
24. The new culture
25. The culture of giving, chapter 6
26. Funerals, chapter 119
27. Concerning the creation of Livets Bog
28. The road to initiation, chapter 1
29. Microcosmos
30. Human beings and their fate
31. Who is my neighbour?
32. LB 6, 2295
33. Conscience
34. The new culture
35. The new culture
36. The road to Shangri-la
37. The Godhead and the love of life
38. Concerning the creation of Livets Bog
39. Freedom, liberation and peace
40. Particles, empty space and thought power: The image of God
41. LB 4, 1150
42. DEV 3, 33.74
43. LB 5, 1661
44. The forgiveness of sins
45. God's eyes
46. Culture
47. Conscience
48. LB 4, 1560
49. Life's whitsuntide splendour
50. DEV1, 29
51. LB 4, 1070
52. Funerals, chapter 40
53. Funerals, chapter 38
54. LB 7, 2475
55. The mental trinity
The quotations from The Third Testament are copyright protected by Martinus Institut 1981.
Martinus in front of the mainsymbol. The year is 1955 and the major cosmic analysis of The Third Testament has been completed.
(Click photo to enlarge.)
Please note that the headings of the following excerpts from the work are not written by Martinus:
Who might find joy in this?
“The people who are receptive to cosmic logic are the people that life itself has educated. They are those who have been through great difficulties and have started to feel what absolutely does not pay. A new form of security will grow in the minds of these people. They will no longer fear death for they will learn to understand that there is no death, only a change from one condition to another, a transformation through reincarnation or rebirth, which in itself is a development. And this development will, in time, lead man to a condition that is true happiness, as he will be devoid of the feeling of insecurity, of disappointment and of all forms of misery that currently plague humanity of our time.” Original Danish title: Vejen til den sande lykke adapted from a lecture given in 1947. First published in 1968. Translated by John B. Nielsen, 1991. Kosmos no. 1, 1991
A nuance in the teachings of life
“The manifestations of any single living being, be they never so brilliant or perfect, will then, in themselves, never be powerful enough to render superfluous all the other forms of influence exerted by Providence or the Almighty upon other living beings. Consequently we have never seen and will never come to see that a so-called "holy-man", or a so-called "holy writ" will be able to constitute more than a single fragment of the stupendous interaction of forces which every day reveal themselves to us as a living, illustrated picture gallery in which universes, suns, planets and creatures, each with their own forms of beauty or inspirational values, and all in accordance with our stage of development and our sensory power, sail before our wondering eyes.” From Livets Bog 1, section 10 (English edition: "The Third Testament" - Livets Bog I. © Martinus Institute 1987, Copenhagen, Denmark.TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Martinus wished his main work "The Third Testament" to be referred to throughout by the Danish sub-title "Livets Bog",pronounced 'Leevets Boh' (The Book of Life).)
All people must find that in life which inspires them
“Therefore for every individual or every seeker after truth in his daily behaviour and experience of life, it is a matter of finding those people, those forms of manifestation, that reading, that occupation or that little or that much, which should be for him the same as an absolutely life-giving or stimulating basis for his development from ignorance to knowledge, from darkness to light, from the dark kingdoms of sorrow and shadows to the radiant zones around the eternal Godhead.” From Livets Bog 1, section 16
In life we are all teachers and students to one another
The purpose of the book of life is “… only aiming to guide the seeker after truth to the understanding of the daily events of life with its incidents, its happy and unhappy experiences, its light and dark scenes, as being identical with a communication released by Providence and especially adapted to him personally.”
“Thus to the person who is studying, Livets Bog will give an insight into how this previously mentioned communication or life's direct language, exists as life's absolutely sole fundamental religion, only able to exist with literally everybody as teachers, with everybody as pupils and with all things as doctrines.”
From Livets Bog 1, section 15
Life itself is the true religion
“As all human beings thereby exist as inborn members of this religion, it has no preceding ceremonies of entry or initiation. And as its scope from eternity to eternity comprises nothing less than the entire Universe itself we have here the only existing religion, in which there is to be found literally but one flock and one shepherd.”
From Livets Bog 1, section 15
Tolerance towards everything and everybody
“Livets Bog has become identical with a disclosure of all living beings' identity as "sons of God", simultaneously uncovering the close mutual relation ship between all religions like clusters of rays from one and the same sea of light and thereby constituting a further defence of all living beings. He has thereby in a wonderful way made Livets Bog a tool for the demonstration and the removal of the last remnant of that form of ignorance which leads to intolerance and its companion, "suffering". From Livets Bog 1, section 19
“For ignorance is in fact the true cause of everything known to the world as "evil". Where ignorance has been removed the so-called "evil" ceases to exist.” From Livets Bog 1, section 19
Once one understands reincarnation life becomes just
"The cosmic analyses have shown us: that reincarnation is the unshakable foundation and guarantee of the establishment of absolute justice in the world. Without it there could be no justice whatsoever. And without a knowledge of reincarnation, the solution to the mystery of life cannot be experienced or recognized… But, thanks to our knowledge of reincarnation, we see that beings are themselves the primary and absolute cause of their own fate, and that their sufferings are called forth by their own ignorance of the perfect way of being and its consequent regulating adjustment of fate." From Livets Bog 7, 2658-17
Researching within
"As the researcher himself is identical with this "living something", it will be his own life that is the object that is nearest to him and is most accessible to research. The new method of research will increasingly be based on the individual's knowledge of himself, his knowledge of his own super-physical nature, as in this super-physical nature lies revealed the whole mystery of life." From "Funerals", chapter 38
Habitual thinking and wisdom
"When people begin to distance themselves from much that is accepted common practice, it will be easy for them to feel that they are alone with their thoughts and wishes, but once they get to know the laws lying behind the power of prayer and understand how to use them, they will notice that they are never alone, but that there are strong spiritual forces behind the transformation of the Earth and mankind that they are now about to work together with consciously." From "Liberation from crowd consciousness"
Crowd consciousness and freedom
"Human beings are still so rooted in the animal traditions that they like being part of a crowd. They would rather follow the crowd on the wrong path than go alone on the right path. But this of course leads them to also take part in the fate of the crowd."
Other beings are not "afraid of the crowd's purgatory. For them uncovering the truth and practising it is the absolutely only thing that mentally governs their appearance, totally regardless of the suffering, ridicule, scorn and gossip that they are subjected to by the ignorant mob… And in the sunlit daylight of these facts the isolated individual or the minority becomes "the last straw that topples the haystack"… freeing the crowd from the clutches of ignorance and suggestion and is therefore justifiably the little "mustard seed" from which the "kingdom of heaven" grows on Earth." From "Funerals", chapters 119 and 121
Trust in life
"The opposite of fear can only be that mental state that we describe as "trust". Where trust comes about, fear is removed. Where fear is removed, peace comes about. The road to real peace, that is to say a peace that is not a camouflaged state of readiness to use weapons, can absolutely only be built or paved - not with weapons - but with trust."
"The true and absolute cause of fear is spiritual or cosmic ignorance. And this is why fear cannot be combatted using brute force and power; the absolutely only thing that can combat fear is cosmic knowledge. Only absolute cosmic knowledge gives a correspondingly unshakeable trust." From "Beyond the fear of death"
Love of life
"What is needed in order to have a real love of life, and in order to maintain it? One has to love one's neighbour as oneself. That gives and maintains a love of life. The way of thinking that most undermines the love of life is thinking of oneself as a victim." From "Love of life"
"We will therefore never, in any way, be able to see the Godhead other than through our neighbour, and shall never see our neighbour without being confronted by the Godhead. Our "neighbour" consists of our own micro-beings. Our "neighbour" is the being in whose organism we ourselves experience the light of day. Our "neighbour" is just as much the being who hates and persecutes us as the being who loves and admires us. Our "neighbour" is, in fact, any being who comes within the range of our sensory field." From Livets Bog 3, 703
Universal love
"From a "half-sexed being" he is now on his way to becoming a "whole-sexed being". As we have already known for some time, he is thus being gradually altered from an animal into a human being. The further a being advances in this transformation, the more "human", that is the more intellectual and loving, he becomes…" From Livets Bog 7, 2482
"The previously so strongly contrasted beings, the "man" and the "woman" are now evened out so that they no longer constitute two sexes. There is therefore no longer any opposite sex for these beings. They all belong to the same sex. The object of their love can thereby only be their "own new sex". From Livets Bog 4, 1560
Killing animals
"Also in the field of nutrition there are areas in which you should practise love… There is another far more beautiful way of living than gaining nourishment from the corpses of slaughtered animals… The advanced human being gains nourishment exclusively from vegetable products." From "The Christmas star"
We attract our own fate
"Every human being is like a magnet that attracts precisely those events and fellow-beings that can offer you the experiences that you most need at the moment." From "Two life-elements"
"If one comes into contact with a person who is unpleasant, one must partly think that it is one's own karma that has brought one into contact with this person. It is a test in tolerance and keeping your spiritual balance… But one can have the thought within oneself: "You also are a divine being, and it is natural to show love to a divine being."
"Love is not just a pat on the cheek. It is a question of doing what in any given situation is the most loving thing to do, without any kind of anger, bitterness, disappointment or irritation. One can be quite definite without being angry, and one can put another person right in a friendly and loving way without banging the table." From "The love of life"
The foundation of the ability to forgive
"When one uses one's intelligence to try to understand that all human beings are on different steps in evolution, one gradually gains the strength to forgive all and everything. But how does one gain the strength to forgive one's neighbour when he has in various ways annoyed you and filled your life with difficulties and problems? By trying with your intelligence to understand that the person in question at this very moment cannot be different than he is, just as a thistle or a nettle cannot be different than they are.
And by realising that when this "enemy" is brought into our presence, he is, cosmically speaking, not an enemy who has it in for you, but merely a tool through which the Godhead allows us to reap what we have ourselves once sown. And equally with one's feeling trying to feel sympathy for the person who knows not what he does and who at a later stage will reap what one has now oneself overcome." So when the "enemy" is in reality not the cause of the trouble, and when he, as a result of his past and in relation to his future, cannot be any different at the moment than he is, there is every possible reason to follow Christ's commandment to forgive over and over again." From a lecture by Martinus, 16 October 1955
Forgiving is not being naively foolish
"The humane quality is in fact a strongly developed sympathy or love of everything and everyone alive. But such a feeling of sympathy may just as well be illogical as it may be logical. An illogical feeling of sympathy is the same as what has been defined in Livets Bog as "foolish kindness". Foolish kindness is that kind of soft-hearted benevolence which supports and helps "swindlers" and "impostors" who, under the cloak of need, illness or misery, try to take advantage of tender-hearted people, and thus unjustifiably, or under false pretences, live well on their generosity." From Livets Bog 7, 2658-29
The present-day world culture is a war for money
"The business world actually appears as constituting a refined form of terrestrial Man’s struggle for valuable goods. This is war transferred onto another plane, but the results are the same as those of ordinary war, namely ruin, poverty and oppression for the vanquished, and wealth, luxury and power for the victors" From Livets Bog 1, 75
"As the whole of existence, by virtue of the cosmic laws, can only be maintained on the basis that every thing of value is paid for with an equivalent value, then the business principle, in its finest analysis, is of a noble and cosmic nature, and only becomes ignoble and anti-social when it reaches the point where large groups of the community’s strong and healthy individuals are prevented from being able to pay value for value, or when large groups of individuals are enabled to "buy" themselves out of the said divine reality. Such conditions will always come about in cases where something is paid for by a price that does not harmonize with its real value." From Livets Bog 1, 76
An international kingdom of peace is in the process of being created on Earth
"In the coming centuries the super-powers will lose their power and people will come together to put the world right by creating an international law that makes war illegal. It will be organized in such a way that the whole world comes under a common government, so that there is no one who takes command of the oil and other valuable resources." From "The new culture" (NB the quotation is from the last century)
"Once all nations and provinces have become one state, there is in reality only one nation in the world. But if there is only one nation in the world, there is no one to make war with, no one to set up customs frontiers for, no one to buy from and no one to sell to. In principle, a nation can be likened to an individual. An individual cannot "do business" with itself. Money loses the basis of its existence and becomes completely redundant." From "Funerals", chapter 202
"As the Earth globe as a whole is a single unity, a single organism or body, its individual parts are required to work together. The world's true nature and its spiritual course is international development. Internationalism is the bond with which God has joined the world together. And "what God has joined together, let man not separate". Everything that goes against this evolution will lead to war." From "Funerals", chapter 178
The present culture is a doomsday period
"We have seen that mankind, more than ever before, is in an epoch of experimentation, an epoch in which the possibilities for mental and physical excesses and derailments in all fields of life are so overwhelming that neither the world religions, prisons, segregation, punishment or executions can possibly cope with them. Excesses and derailments take their course and thus provide openings for all the infringements of the laws of life that make the experience of the terrors of Doomsday or Armageddon unavoidable." From Livets Bog 7, 2521
"It is mankind's almost complete ignorance of spiritual or psychic matter that has brought about the terrors of Doomsday…It is inevitable that all creation on the physical plane must be logical if it is to fulfil the object and intention of its production. Were it not so, it would be a disappointment and a mental catastrophe for its originator…What will eventually extricate humanity from the darkness of Doomsday is therefore not material science, and equally it is not the principle of religion in the antiquated interpretation in which it still holds good today. On the contrary, it is primarily through the accumulated store of experiences which humanity has acquired through the terrors and difficulties of Doomsday." From Livets Bog 7, 2522
"This store of experience is what gives rise to the humane quality in beings, the quality, that is to say, of being unable to bear to do harm of any kind to other beings either physically or mentally…There is so much that seems good but is in reality evil, just as there is much that seems evil but is in reality good…In order to be able to decide definitely what is evil and what is good in the divine world plan, one must know the main structure of the plan." From Livets Bog 7, 2523
"But even though the being has begun to become a humane being, it cannot immediately help itself to acquire cosmic knowledge or information about the extent to which its humane attitude or behaviour is truly logically and scientifically in agreement with the cosmic purpose of life. And this is where the being becomes receptive to spiritual science or the cosmic analyses of life." From Livets Bog 7, 2524
"It is no wonder that the way out of the zone of heavy matter is only through the development of neighbourly love. As long as the being is a danger to his surroundings, he has to remain under the burden of heavy matter. Solid matter is life's "straightjacket". When the being becomes unselfish his "straightjacket" releases and he becomes liberated and at this point matter obeys his will gladly and directly, so that true life begins to open its portals to the entranced son of God." From Livets Bog 2, 365
"Providence has a wealth of methods of making sure the being that acts in an all-loving way is safe". From "Culture"
Present-day irreligiousness
"…this attitude is in reality merely a superficial division. From the very outset all people are religious; indeed, they cannot live at all without being so. "Irreligiousness" is therefore merely a state of mind in which the being has lost all faith in the traditional morality and understanding of a providence or a godhead of the past, since the way these are interpreted is in glaring opposition to its present scientific or intellectual sensory perception. The moment that the religious laws and super terrestrial details become true science and can be investigated or checked with the intellect, there will be thousands or millions of terrestrial human beings who will be ready to place their understanding and their life completely within the sphere of interest of this science. Then their religiousness will rise once again to the visible, physical surface." From Livets Bog 4, 1485
The Godhead – a reality?
"The real, actual experience of the Godhead through cosmic consciousness or initiation cannot be given to any being, it is something the being itself must develop and that will come when the being possesses in its consciousness the necessary mixture of feeling, intelligence and intuition. It is something that comes with evolution in the same way that the being once gained eyes to see with and ears to hear with. It will come sooner or later to every terrestrial human being, in precisely the same way that it once evolved from mineral to plant and from plant to animal. It will now be transformed from an animal into a true human being, which means into a human being in God's image." From "God's senses"
The Third Testament
"We can see that the final stage of the Christian world epoch, the new world culture, is already inbuilt into the previous cultures. The world epoch of Christianity is made up of three great stages, in which the first constitutes The Old Testament and Judaism and the second The New Testament and Christianity, during which the material state should be developed. The third stage is The Third Testament or spiritual science that will provide the basis for human beings' further development and will guarantee that human beings within this epoch will become one with God." From "The world epoch of Christianity"
"What will take place in this new world epoch? In this new world epoch all war, need and misery will gradually be phased out. Mankind will be in God's image after his likeness. All the nations of the Earth will be united into one realm, and mankind will become one shepherd and one flock. Mankind's religiousness will no longer be based on instinct or pure belief, but on science, fact and reality. All will dare to recognise God's life revealed in all and everything." From "Three types of human being in the creation of "God's image" on Earth"
The highest way of being
"Christ said to his disciples: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". What kind of baptism is being referred to here? The real baptism, the only kind that has any meaning, is the loving interaction with our neighbour in everyday life. To infect others with the being of light through one's behaviour is the true baptism. One cannot change other people, but one can give them an example that will go on having an effect over a long period. And in reality this being of light does not originate in oneself, it comes from God through oneself to one's neighbour. One then becomes a being that through the love that one has for others and the love that one has for life causes the Godhead to be present in one's interaction with one's neighbour. There is then no sense of being a victim in one's consciousness, peace now shines and radiates through the human being even though they find themselves on a battlefield." From "The love of life"
Martinus was asked the following question:
Why hasn’t “the Martinus movement” a suitable name by which it can be recognised like the other spiritual movements, such as Theosophy, Anthroposophy, the Home Mission, Jehovah’s Witnesses etc?
Martinus’ answer:
As there does not exist, under any form, around my spiritual work nor will there ever come to exist an association, sect or body of believers with drawn up laws and regulations, with sacraments and christening ceremonies etc, thus there will not be any “movement” to give a name to.
That my spiritual work has more and more readers and students who are interested in it does not however mean that these thereby can be considered as an organised, religious community. That one studies or reads my works no more means that one is forming a congregation, sect or church than if one reads the scientific work of other authors. As the whole of my spiritual work solely aims to be a teaching or a manifestation of knowledge in the form of analyses of the world picture and through that revealing the conditions for neighbourly love or the humane conduct of living or way of being, which makes humanity one with world peace, thus my work with its intellectual structure can not ever be a religion based upon belief. It can, on the other hand, only just be a school, a college, an institution for guidance and instruction in the science of life, whereby the developed student can be in contact with their divine transformation from animal to “the human being in God’s image”.
My work is thus for absolutely all truth seekers quite independent of whichever religion, nation or race they may belong to. My analyses are, just as any other science, absolutely neutral and impartial.
As my spiritual work is thus a manifestation of and a guidance in the eternal analyses of the world picture it can purely and simply just be described as cosmic science, which again is the same as “spiritual science”, just as the students of this spiritual science can only be called “spiritual researchers”. To call my spiritual work and the researchers who are interested in it with any other description can only be an expression for a total misunderstanding."
The quotations from The Third Testament are copyright protected by Martinus Institut 1981.