What is a world picture? It is an overview of the fundamental principles
that form the basis for the whole of nature, living beings and the reactions
and movements of the stars and galaxies. But how could a human being who
is such a tiny microbe ever be able to get such an overview'? The cosmos
or universe has neither beginning nor end. It extends infinitely. One will
never then he able to attain an overview of something that extends infinitely.
How can one reach the bottom of something that is bottomless? The claim
that one has an overview of the universe can then only be made by fanatics.
Indeed, this is the ordinary modern view and even the view of materialistic
science. But how could ordinary materialistically minded people ever be
able to get any other view'? They do not yet understand how to attune their
senses. intelligence and capacity for understanding in such a way that they
really can view the universe and thereby experience the solution of the
mystery or riddle of life. It is not the meaning of life that the universe
should not be able to be experienced. It is not the meaning of life that
life itself, the beings' own identity, should remain mysterious. For Christ,
life and its originator was not anything mysterious hut crystal-clear reality.
The fact that he was not able to reveal his great knowledge in any other
way than a very childlike one was not due to himself but to the childlike
and cosmically illiterate mankind to whom he had to speak. It is the same
primitivity and cosmic childishness of mankind that have meant that the
great world religions have not either been able to reveal the secret of
the world picture in logical chains of thought discernable for the intelligence
and thereby verifiable as facts for the intellect. Obtaining an overview
of the universe is therefore not an impossibility. Why then cannot science
- with its huge optical equipment such as telescopes, microscopes, electron-microscopes
and its huge electronic brains - achieve this kind of survey? No - with
the attitude of modern science and ordinary materialistically-minded mankind
the mystery or secret of the universe is insoluble. The overview of the
universe is therefore not a question of those phenomena that science is
expert at researching.
The solution of the secret or mystery of the universe is not at question
of size or weights and measures in the same way as the mystery or secret
of the living being is not solved by knowledge of the same being's size,
volume, shape and colour. Since the universe is infinite it contains all
sizes. The ultimate solution of something that constitutes all sizes cannot
possibly he expressed by a size. Neither can something that has all dimensions
within itself be expressed by an ultimate solution in the form of a number.
As long as one is only prepared for research into something that can he
expressed in numbers or in weights and measures then one will find oneself
on a path of science ending in a cul-de-sac. And one obtains absolutely
no answer whatsoever to the really important questions about life itself
- what is life what is the living being is it immortal. and what
is the universe? So perhaps one will here ask about the purpose, if any,
of the solution of the mystery of life. But to this one must then in turn
put the question - how will we otherwise overcome all the misery, depression.
sorrow and ill-health and the all-pervading "war of everyone against
everyone else''? None of these or similar questions of great importance
can be answered by a result expressed in numbers. It does not help that
one knows the speed of light, the distance between the stars, the structure
of atoms and electrons. the rotations of the earth and the orbit of the
sun in space and so on when one is suffering from serious illnesses. This
knowledge is not any comfort either in time of sorrow, nor is it of any
help when one is depressed or tired of life. If answers in weights and measures
were able to explain such problems of life for people then the earth would
have long since become a world of angels, a world in which there was neither
sorrow, screaming nor pain. But this is not the case. The world is experiencing
a culmination of sorrow, death throes and fatal illnesses although people
are masters of physical material pressing buttons to make thousands upon
thousands of nature's horsepower work for them. But nevertheless this supreme
knowledge and skill in the material field does not prevent people from being
illiterate regarding the solution of the mystery or riddle of life.
So, in order to find the solution of the mystery of life itself, one must
find one's way out of the blind alley of materialistic science. This is
not meant as an underestimation of materialistic science hut rather as a
justification for it, because in a very ingenious way it solves those areas
of the mystery of life for which it was designed and that are within its
capacity. To demand that it should solve problems and riddles of quite another
nature than weights and measures, volume, shape and colour is the same as
demanding that it should be adept at giving information about things and
phenomena that belong to quite another reality than that which can be weighed
and measured.
What is then this other reality? It is that reality one arrives at when
one understands that the universe is infinite both in time and space, and
that it is therefore not accessible for any kind of weighing or measuring.
It cannot therefore have any kind of' time- or space-dimensional solution.
Nevertheless, in spite of this, we are compelled to recognise that it does
exist. So we are confronted with something that exists outside time and
space. We have here the first meeting with a reality of quite another nature
than the reality we can weigh and measure. Since this ''Something"
is outside time and space it has only one single analysis, namely, that
it constitutes "Something that is''. We have here thus arrived at a
fixed reality that we cannot take away. We can also begin to discover something
more about this reality, which is subject neither to time nor to space.
We know that all creation and all movement occur in this "Something"
in the same way as we know that it is only this movement or creation that
acts on our senses. What we experience is therefore not this "Something
that is" but something that is within this "Something''. By virtue
of the fact that there is movement, it can influence the senses, which are
also movement, and this results in what we call the experience of life.
Life-experience is therefore in reality only a series of encounters or collisions
between the energy of out senses and the energy of the surroundings. Since
the movements differ is speed and strength, the collisions also differ in
strength. It is these different kinds of collisions we experience through
our senses and that become our joys and sorrows, our health and ill-health,
our peace and lack of peace with the beings in our surroundings. In certain
cases these sensory collisions appear as fixed substance, and in other cases
as liquids, gases or rays. We thus form ideas about substance and matter
at the same time as we ourselves become able to juggle with these substances
and materials.
We call this juggling "creating".
We have now seen that in this "Something that is" there is not
only movement and the collisions and reactions of movements, but there is
also something that experiences all this - us, for example. What or who
are we? In order to arrive at an understanding of who we are we must recognise
that we cannot be identical with our organism because it represents only
movement. whether it is the smallest function of a gland or a vibration
in the brain: the musculature and the skeleton also represent movement or
vibration. We can, therefore, in our innermost Self or "I" experience
not only movements but we can also initiate movement, which means, we can
create. But, as we ourselves are not part of the movement, we cannot be
weighed or measured. So we too exist outside time and space. We or our innermost
Self is here neither male nor female, neither large nor small. neither evil
nor good. So here we have no other analysis than the analysis of the universe
itself, namely, "Something that is". We now know that that "Something"
that is inside us is what we call our "1". It cannot have any
beginning or end. It is. like the universe, an eternal reality. Our "l''
is therefore beyond movement and can experience and initiate movement in
the form of creation. This creation makes it a fact that it exists. And
we also know that without this "I" in our organism it is bound
to die and decompose. The living being with its organism thus constitutes
an I and a combination of movements and can react to movements from the
outside and itself initiate movement. Here we witness that there is an originator
behind the movements and that these movements cannot possibly form themselves
into logical creation without the presence of this "1". Each of
us constitutes a creator and the created, and thus represents two worlds,
- the time- and space-dimensional one and the eternal one. The time- and
spacedimensional world is our organism and the things we create. They are
a manifestation or revelation of our l's existence beyond this creation.
The fact that we are human beings is only a temporary combination of the
substances, the energies and the movement created by our "1",
but this combination is certainly not us. But then, what about the universe?
It was also infinite. beyond time and space and "Something that is"?
Since the movements of the universe also appear as creations or logical
combinations of materials so that they benefit and become a joy and a blessing
for living beings, then they too reveal - just like the manifestations and
creations of man - that they are the result of thinking. And just as the
manifestations and creations of man reveal him as a living being, so the
creations of nature or the universe likewise reveal the universe or cosmos
as a living being. The universe is therefore an organism for an eternal
"I" in the same way as our organism is for our "1".
The universe is therefore the organism of a living being in which we and
our organism are situated. And our daily experience of life is a question
of harmonious or disharmonious co-operation between the energies of this
great organism and our own energies or substances. Our happy or unhappy
fate is dependant on this relationship. The experience of life is thus a
product of our relationship to the structure of the universe in the same
way as the life-experience of our micro-organisms corresponds to their relationship
to the structure of our organism. We can. by our behaviour. be in disharmony
with the structure of the universe, that is, in disharmony with God's organism,
and our fate becomes unhappy, just as we can be in disharmony with the micro-individuals
in our own organism and experience ill-health, a detail from the spectrum
of unhappy fates. If we are in harmony with God's organism and the microbeings
in our own organism then we have become the perfect man in God's image.
This is the great goal of creation. The world picture in brief therefore
means that the universe is a living being, an expression for the highest
idea of the unfoldment of consciousness, physical and mental creation and
behaviour. It is this living being that people for thousands of years have
rightly worshipped as God. And as we are micro-beings in this Godhead, it
is beyond doubt that our total physical and mental well-being is entirely
conditioned by the extent to which we are a joy and a blessing for all other
living beings. If we do not look after our physical organism and fulfil
its essential healthgiving requirements of nourishment and hygiene, we,
to a greater or lesser extent, destroy the life and well-being of the micro-individuals
in
our own organism whereby ill-health to a corresponding extent occurs. And
if we feel anger and bitterness towards other beings and try to persecute
them because we think they have wronged us then we are actually persecuting
micro-beings in the organism of God. And God must start to "fight"
us in order to preserve the health of his own organism. And the Godhead's
fight against ill-health in his body or organism takes place with such accuracy
and precision that "whatsoever a man soweth, so shall he also reap".
Indeed "even the hairs of his head are all numbered", in the same
way as it is impossible for "a sparrow to fall to the ground without
it being the will of God". It is not so extraordinary that loving one's
neighbour as oneself is the fulfilment of all the laws.
With this attitude to the universe we entered a road that did not end in
a cul-de-sac but that was a through road direct to the understanding that
the universe is the Godhead's non-time and space-dimensional organism in
which we, as equally eternal beings, "live and move and have our being",
and that the whole of our happy or unhappy way of living is entirely a question
of anatomy. All living beings are organs of life in a greater organism.
If we, by our thinking and behaviour, destroy life and promote depression
in other living beings in the same organism then we create sick and unhealthy
areas in the great organism in which we experience life. Here it is easy
to see that the fundamental cause of all suffering in the world is a violation
of the perfect anatomy by the power of which all life in the universe is
tied together forming a unit. We have now seen a life-giving thought-process
that shows us that we are eternal, contributing centres in this unit, and
that the only way to total health and happiness is to be a joy and a blessing
for everything with which one comes into contact. That was the world picture
in brief.
This article is based on a lecture given by Martinus in 1955.