Cosmic consciousness

Introduction

In Martinus’ world picture, cosmic consciousness is the faculty through which a living being experiences the eternal, spiritual and cosmic dimensions of existence. Martinus describes it as the basis for cosmic analyses, which view life from an eternal perspective. He relates its permanent awakening to an initiation. ^[1]

The faculty develops through stages. The terrestrial human being has a limited relationship to it, while the finished human being experiences the mental, spiritual and cosmic world in permanent awake day-consciousness and lives in conscious coexistence with the Godhead. ^[2]

Meaning and scope

Martinus describes his own experience as a liberation from local consciousness. Before initiation, consciousness was connected with a particular time and place. Afterwards, eternity appeared as the fixed point, while time and space appeared as movements. From this perspective, the beginning and conclusion of a life course could be perceived together. ^[3]

Cosmic analyses are the observations made possible by this faculty. They concern the universe and the divine world plan, and see the details of existence in relation to eternity and immortality rather than as events within a limited local area. ^[4]

Intuition and the Great Birth

The first beginnings of cosmic consciousness appear through intuition. Martinus describes intuition as the sudden appearance of complete spiritual thought pictures during ecstatic joy and inspiration, through cooperation between feeling, intelligence and the developing body of intuition. ^[5]

In advanced terrestrial human beings, intuition is intermittent and not yet under full control of the will. Spiritual memory can briefly enter consciousness. For an artist or writer this may appear as a ready-made creative idea; for a spiritual researcher it may appear as a fleeting glimpse of absolute knowledge. ^[6] ^[7] ^[8]

Martinus also describes intuition as a source of recognition and creation. It can make available memory material that has left the day-conscious mind, giving higher manifestations a wider range than intelligence alone, and it can provide ready-made material for new thought pictures. ^[9] ^[10]

Before the Great Birth, intuition reveals only cosmic glimpses of eternal reality. The individual cannot yet maintain an unbroken cosmic sight. When intuition becomes permanent, the individual begins to move consciously in spiritual spheres and remains permanently conscious in the cosmic world; this transformation is the Great Birth. ^[11] ^[12]

In Meditation, cosmic glimpses are described as experiences of immortality or of a small area of eternal truth. They are beginnings of the total cosmic consciousness expressed as the “Holy Spirit”, which removes the remaining animal tendencies and makes the individual conscious of absolute truth. ^[13]

Cosmic consciousness in the spiral cycle

Martinus describes cosmic consciousness as a circuit moving from latency towards culmination and then back towards latency. The rising and falling stages form the experience of life in the spiral cycle, and every living being represents one of these stages. ^[14]

The spiral is compared with a cosmic day and cosmic night. It contains a light period and a dark period. Martinus associates the light period with the higher spiritual kingdoms, while the stages through the plant kingdom and animal kingdom belong to the declining and darkening part of the circuit. Terrestrial humanity is situated in the winter and midnight zone, described as the childhood stage of cosmic consciousness. ^[15]

Martinus also compares the cosmic day with the cosmic seasons. The culmination of the higher kingdoms is the cosmic midday or summer, the descent through the physical kingdoms is afternoon and evening or autumn, and the terrestrial human position belongs to cosmic winter and spring. The circuit gives changing consciousness a place within a recurring cosmic rhythm. ^[16]

The cycle principle is applied specifically to the Earth as a living being. Martinus describes the Earth’s abnormal condition as a rhythm or season that will be succeeded by another rhythm, and describes its present crisis as an introduction to the Great Birth. He further describes the Earth moving towards a condition in which God’s will becomes the Earth’s consciousness and will. ^[17] ^[18]

The basic energies and religious instinct

Martinus explains consciousness through six basic energies: instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory. Their combined functions constitute the living being’s total experience and creative activity, designated as X2. The six energies are connected with the superconsciousness through temporary organs or bodies. ^[19]

The six energies therefore operate together in the living being’s experience and creation. Instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory are described as functions whose combination constitutes consciousness. ^[20]

Instinct is related to an earlier, now unconscious cosmic consciousness. Martinus describes animals and primitive human beings as sensing life and Providence through instinct, without possessing an intellectual, awake day-conscious analysis of the cosmic world. This instinctive religiousness is a remnant of a previous cosmic relationship, not the permanent cosmic sight of an initiated being. ^[21] ^[22]

Intuition has a special significance because it gives access to spiritual memory material not present in ordinary day-consciousness. Its appearances as glimpses of absolute knowledge belong to the developing stage; when the function becomes permanent, the individual becomes the bearer of cosmic consciousness. ^[23] ^[24] ^[25]

The loss and recovery of cosmic awareness

Martinus describes terrestrial humanity as being in a condition in which there is no day-consciousness on the cosmic plane. Such beings see life as limited to matter and may regard themselves as temporary combinations of matter. This condition is also described with the expressions “cosmically dead” and “dying”. ^[26]

He contrasts this condition with primitive humanity, which still has an instinctive sense of Providence. Primitive human beings are not cosmically conscious, but neither are they completely cosmically alive or dead. Civilised humanity is described as further along in the same transition and as increasingly losing its instinctive sense of a living Godhead and eternal existence. ^[27] ^[28]

The loss of cosmic awareness is a stage in the circuit of consciousness. As lower tendencies are overcome, feeling, intelligence and intuition develop, and the individual becomes prepared for the permanent intuition and cosmic consciousness of the Great Birth. ^[29] ^[30]

The human path

The human path towards cosmic consciousness is expressed in overcoming the remaining animal nature. Martinus connects this development with spiritual sovereignty and permanent conscious experience of the cosmic world. ^[31]

Forgiveness has a specific place in this development. Martinus states that the road to cosmic consciousness goes through training in forgiveness, because understanding the causes behind another being’s actions removes the basis for hatred and vengeance. ^[32]

Martinus identifies cosmic consciousness with a completely developed mentality that understands the world plan and recognises universal love through all living beings. Its practical expression is peace and the creation of well-being. ^[33]

Christ consciousness and the Godhead

Cosmic consciousness is closely related to Christ consciousness. Martinus identifies the Holy Spirit with the consciousness with which Christ was filled and regards its development as the goal of human evolution. ^[34]

In his account of the transfiguration, Martinus distinguishes a permanent opening of cosmic consciousness from a temporary cosmic glimpse. Jesus is presented as Christ, the finished human being in God’s image, through this permanent consciousness. ^[35]

A cosmically conscious being experiences the mental, spiritual and cosmic world in awake day-consciousness, lives in coexistence with the Godhead, and is in harmony with its consciousness. Such beings also appear as world redeemers for beings at earlier stages. ^[36]

Cosmic consciousness thus denotes the permanent awakening of the spiritual faculties and the conscious expression of universal love. ^[37] ^[38]

References

[1] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.1 (*)

[2] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 23.2

[3] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.1 (*)

[4] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.1 (*)

[5] Livets Bog 1, section 199

[6] Livets Bog 1, section 200

[7] Livets Bog 1, section 202

[8] Livets Bog 1, section 203

[9] Livets Bog 1, section 201

[10] Livets Bog 1, section 205

[11] Livets Bog 1, section 206

[12] Livets Bog 1, section 204

[13] Meditation, section 2.6 (*)

[14] Livets Bog 2, section 461

[15] Livets Bog 2, section 461

[16] Livets Bog 2, section 461

[17] Livets Bog 3, section 667

[18] Livets Bog 3, section 668

[19] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.17

[20] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.17

[21] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 1.3 (*)

[22] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.11 (*)

[23] Livets Bog 1, section 202

[24] Livets Bog 1, section 203

[25] Livets Bog 1, section 204

[26] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.12 (*)

[27] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.11 (*)

[28] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 2.12 (*)

[29] Livets Bog 1, section 203

[30] Livets Bog 1, section 204

[31] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 23.2

[32] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 1.15 (*)

[33] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 1.15 (*)

[34] Meditation, section 2.6 (*)

[35] Meditation, section 2.8 (*)

[36] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 23.2

[37] Meditation, section 2.6 (*)

[38] Kosmisk bevidsthed, section 1.15 (*)

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