Lasse at 03:04, 17 August 2026

2026-08-17T03:04:45Z

Lasse: Created page with "== Introduction == In the works of Martinus, the Danish thinker and spiritual writer (1876–1949), love is not merely an emotion among others but the central principle of the universe and the ultimate aim of every living being's existence. Martinus describes love as the fully developed and harmonised expression of feeling energy in unity with intelligence e..."

2026-08-17T02:57:58Z

Created page with "== Introduction == In the works of Martinus, the Danish thinker and spiritual writer (1876–1949), love is not merely an emotion among others but the central principle of the universe and the ultimate aim of every living being's existence. Martinus describes love as the fully developed and harmonised expression of feeling energy in unity with intelligence e..."

New page

== Introduction ==
In the works of Martinus, the Danish thinker and spiritual writer (1876–1949), love is not merely an emotion among
others but the central principle of the universe and the ultimate aim of every living being's existence. Martinus
describes love as the fully developed and harmonised expression of feeling energy in unity with intelligence energy,
distinguishing it sharply from what he terms partial or imperfect "loves" such as those grounded in physical
attraction, possession, or self-preservation. In this conceptual framework, love is both the fundamental nature of the
Godhead and the destiny of terrestrial mankind: the process by which the individual evolves from an animal mode of
being centred on self-preservation to a spiritual mode of being centred on the unselfish bestowal of happiness on all
others.

Central to Martinus' analysis are several interconnected terms: "neighbourly love," "universal love," "love
principle," "love material," "love body," and "love wisdom." Each addresses a different aspect of the same overarching
idea. As Martinus writes in one passage, "the whole of the individual's mentality should thus be love," a statement
that frames love not as one capacity among many but as the complete orientation of a developed being toward its
surroundings and toward life itself.{{ref|short book 10|2.17}}

== Love as intellectualised feeling ==
Martinus grounds his definition of love in the relationship between feeling and intelligence. In ''On My Cosmic
Analyses'' he writes that where the balance between feeling and intelligence is perfect, "the mental display that we
call 'love' arises. Love is thus intellectualised feeling."{{ref|short book 12|2.1}} Feeling that is not
intellectualised, he explains, can in the best case produce "pampering" or "spoiling," and in the worst case the
mental display called "hatred." Neither of these states allows one to perceive an object correctly, because both
produce a one-sided view; in Martinus' assessment, this one-sidedness forms the basis of "all religious and secular
intolerance."[[1]]

In ''Experience of life'', Martinus describes the evolutionary moment at which this harmony is achieved: at the
highest peak, the combination of intelligence energy and feeling energy "appears as pure love; in other words a
manifestation is released which aims only at being for the benefit of other living beings without any consideration of
the cost to the person concerned in terms of unpleasantness or suffering."{{ref|LB1|178}} He immediately cautions that
this love should not be confused with "married love" or "falling in love," which he regards as "of an inferior nature"
originating in the reproductive organs and the instinct of self-preservation, "thereby making it inherently selfish."
Genuine love, he continues, "does not seek its own" and does not release itself "in the expectation of gain or
reward."{{ref|LB1|178}}

A further passage elaborates the idea from a different angle: beings who possess "love wisdom"—knowledge of feeling in
harmony with knowledge of intelligence—are described as capable of perceiving other beings' lives, "their sorrow and
joy, their suffering and unhappiness," and at the culmination of this development the resulting state is named
"universal love."{{ref|LB1|232}}

== Distinguishing genuine love from its partial expressions ==
A significant part of Martinus' analysis of love is devoted to distinguishing genuine universal love from the various
partial forms under which love appears in terrestrial experience. In ''The highly developed researcher and the
illusory appearance of "created things"'' he argues that the delight and admiration between beings of "opposite sexes"
celebrated by poets and authors "is actually the same feeling as that which the thirsty wanderer in the desert has for
much-desired water."{{ref|LB4|1125}} This amorous love, he says, is in its true nature a longing for possession rather
than for the good of the other being.

"Maternal love," likewise, though apparently unselfish, is "largely selfish" in that it applies only to "the mother's
own child" and functions as "an extension of her own drive for self-preservation."{{ref|LB4|1126}} Martinus proposes
that where a mother cares for other children "just as much as her own," it is no longer "maternal love" in evidence
but rather the great "neighbourly love that is 'the fulfilment of the law' and constitutes the foundation of the
perfect human being's consciousness and mentality."{{ref|LB4|1126}}

In a detailed analysis of amorous love's structure, Martinus identifies a two-stage process: "Stage A," the initial
sympathetic impulse, which gives way to "desire B," the demand for possession and reciprocated love.{{ref|LB5|1819}}
He argues that "unrequited love" is not unhappy love at all but an unsatisfied hunger that proves amorous love is not
real love, since "love can never be unhappy … Love never seeks its own, and can never disappoint its
source."{{ref|LB5|1820}} He concludes that the "desire B of amorous love is thus the deadly frost and coldness of the
spiral cycle … the gate or channel through which the killing principle rules the continents and seas of the
Earth."{{ref|LB5|1821}}

== Neighbourly love as the fulfilment of the law ==
The concept of "neighbourly love" occupies a central position in Martinus' writings. Drawing on the Biblical
injunctions "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" and "It is more blessed to give than to receive," Martinus
interprets these as descriptions of the highest evolutionary aim of the terrestrial human being: to live so that one's
highest happiness consists exclusively in being of advantage to one's neighbour.{{ref|short book 10|2.17}} He
identifies love with "exclusively the desire to give one's neighbour happiness and joy," and defines the individual's
fate as determined by two factors—self and neighbour—which translate into two possible forms of existence: hatred of
the surroundings, which he equates with mental imprisonment, and love of the surroundings, which he equates with total
liberation and "total sovereignty."{{ref|short book 10|2.19}}

Martinus further argues that the terrestrial human being has reached a critical evolutionary crossroads at which its
sexual structure and the resulting "amorous love" give way to a new organic function: a capacity for sympathy and love
directed not exclusively toward an "opposite sex" but toward all beings without exception.{{ref|short book 13|30}}
This new capacity, he writes, makes the neighbour "a new 'sex', an incipient new object for the individual's sympathy
and love," and transforms the being from a "mental half-sun" that casts shadows toward some beings into a "mental
solar being" that "sends its halo out over everything and everyone, just like the suns and the stellar cities of the
universe."{{ref|short book 13|30}}

== The evolutionary development of love ==
Because love is described as the product of a harmony between feeling and intelligence, its development is inherently
gradual and evolutionary. Martinus writes that pain and suffering develop and ennoble the faculty of feeling, making
the individual receptive to feeling energy; when this feeling energy comes into harmony with intelligence energy,
genuine love arises.{{ref|LB1|232}} As feeling is refined, "all animal skills and faculties will degenerate, and in
this way mankind will become less qualified as an animal and more and more qualified as a human being."{{ref|LB1|232}}
He names the resulting transformation the development of terrestrial mankind's science into the "science of love."

The physical body that carries this function is what Martinus calls the "love body"—the body made of feeling or love
energy, which corresponds to the "real human kingdom" and remains "subconscious" or dormant until refined through the
individual's evolutionary development.{{ref|LB1|181}} Only "by training to love can one's senses open up to God's
radiance," he writes; "without this training the terrestrial human being's senses are unopened to
reality."{{ref|LB3|701}}

== Love, humility, and the Godhead ==
Martinus connects love closely with humility. "Love cannot exist without being the same as 'humility'," he writes in
''The Road to Initiation'', and this humility is "the absolute recognition of the 'perfection' and 'imperfection' of
one's own being," which in turn is the true recognition of the living being itself.{{ref|short book 12|1.33}} In the
same passage he states that "love" is "the great and profound aim behind every terrestrial human quest."

At the ultimate level, Martinus identifies love with the very nature of the Godhead. In ''World redemption'' he
describes love as "the Godhead's own inner radiating fire which pervades everything and everybody, indeed, which is
the inmost fundamental spirit and power of the universe itself. It is the beginning, culmination and end of
everything. It is Alpha and Omega."{{ref|short book 11|7}} He argues that this all-pervading love cannot be diminished
by any individual believer or unbeliever, just as the light of the sun is "completely unimpeded" by what any person on
Earth thinks about its nature.{{ref|short book 11|7}} In another passage the Godhead is described as identical with
"all-love itself," and Martinus reasons that a Godhead capable of sending a being of "pure all-love and pure
lovableness towards foes as well as friends" into the world "could not possibly be considered as an inferior
being."{{ref|short book 11|4}}

In ''The transformation of the Earth'', part of ''The Eternal Way of Development and Progress'' series, Martinus
discusses the climactic love contact between perfected double-poled beings as the highest form of direct experience of
the Godhead's presence. "Is there a greater direct personal meeting with God in flesh and blood, in material and
spirit than precisely during the mutual climactic love contact with one's neighbour, who, here at the culmination of
its double-poled state, is the human being in God's image after his likeness, that is, a partner in love who is one
with God?"{{ref|TEWP 3|33.35}}

In ''Mental sovereignty'', Martinus draws an analogy between the perfected human being and the sun: "From being an
animal that can maintain its existence or its life only by murdering, killing or mutilating its neighbour … one has
become a being that maintains its existence exclusively by giving life, which in turn means radiating love to
everything and everyone."{{ref|short book 10|2.20}} He further asserts that "no one, from a cosmic point of view, can
do wrong or suffer wrong," and that "the world plan is thus the culmination of love."{{ref|short book 10|1.12}}

== Love material and the kernel of the eternal panorama ==
In ''Experience of life'', Martinus describes a process by which all experience—however dark—leaves "copies" in what
he calls "love material," which he characterises as "the spiritual world's most precious 'metal', or
'gold'."{{ref|LB1|211}} These golden copies constitute the inner world of the individual, which he names the "kingdom
of bliss," where all past suffering is experienced in a transfigured, glorified light that is felt as the highest form
of ecstasy.{{ref|LB1|211}}

The symbol of the heart, discussed in ''The Eternal Way of Development and Progress'', volume 2, is said to represent
a being that has attained "a total or perfect ability to love," while the two joined hands within the heart figure
signify "a total or perfect ability to forgive."{{ref|TEWP 2|23.6}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[1]] The passage from ''short book 10|2.17'' (10b-S17) states: "And is not the satisfaction of this desire to a
corresponding degree precisely the joy in seeing one's fellow beings and surroundings, that is to say one's neighbour,
totally or perfectly happy?"

User:Lasse/test - Revision history

Lasse at 03:04, 17 August 2026