Neighbourly love

Neighbourly love is Martinus' term for the love of all living beings with whom one comes into contact. In his analysis, the neighbour is not defined by family, nationality, friendship or attraction, but by being a living being within one's sphere of action. Neighbourly love therefore means relating to the living being itself, rather than according to kinship or attraction.

Martinus connects this form of love with the development of human consciousness. He describes its emergence through suffering, the refinement of feeling and the gradual transformation of the being's way of life. In the same development, love becomes connected with forgiveness, wisdom, peace and the finished human kingdom.

The neighbour and the scope of love

Martinus gives the word neighbour a wide meaning. It includes all fellow living beings with whom the individual comes into contact. The decisive relationship is therefore not kinship: a stranger, an animal or another human being may equally be one's neighbour. The being that is closest and in need of help has a claim on one's practical love, and the help should be adapted to the natural condition of the being concerned.

Martinus distinguishes neighbourly love from the love that belongs to the one-poled or marital sphere. Neighbourly love is directed towards every living being, while marital love is a special sympathy connected with the Animal kingdom. The distinction places these forms of sympathy at different points in the passage through the spiral cycle.

Love as a universal principle

Martinus connects neighbourly love with the principle by which the sun and Nature give light and warmth without favouring only the good, the powerful or those who resemble them. To love one's neighbour is consequently to caress all living beings with one's mind and being, regardless of how they reveal themselves.

This universal character is related to Martinus' analysis of the living being's place in the universe. Every being is at once a microbeing in a greater organism and a macrobeing for the beings living in its own organism. The harmony between the I and its fellow beings is called peace; in its highest form, it is neighbourly love. Harmony between the I and its microcosmos is expressed as health. Neighbourly love thus belongs to a wider structure of mutual dependence in Martinus' cosmic analysis.

The same structure appears in the basic energies and the kingdoms of the spiral cycle. The kingdoms are arranged so that beings in lower spirals provide the material and living conditions for beings in higher spirals, while higher beings provide corresponding conditions for lower life. Martinus presents this mutual service as a cosmic cooperation in which no living being can experience life without contributing to the life of others.

From darkness to humaneness

Martinus describes the lack of neighbourly love as a condition of cosmic ignorance. When a being can love only itself, its conduct is governed by egoism, force and the struggle to preserve its own advantages. This produces a world of conflict and suffering, because the being does not yet understand the connection between its own fate and its relationship with other living beings. Real peace, in this analysis, is an effect of neighbourly love rather than an enforced ceasefire.

The passage from this condition to love takes place through experience. In Livets Bog, Martinus describes suffering and the effects of killing, exploitation and egoism as experiences that gradually refine the faculty of feeling. When feeling comes into harmony with intelligence, it becomes love, expressed as unselfishness and warmth of spirit. This development changes the being from an animal-oriented existence towards the human kingdom and prepares the way for the Great Birth.

A related article describes the same development as the individual's growing rejection of brutality and unloving conduct. As the faculty of love develops, the being demands an explanation of fate that accords with humaneness and the religious instinct rises to a higher level.

The development is not presented as a simple decision of the will. Martinus states that neighbourly love becomes an organic product of evolution. The growing conflict between the wish to do good and the inability to realise that wish is experienced as pangs of conscience. In this way, the emerging love gradually becomes a determining power in the being's actions, while the desire for an intellectual understanding of love develops alongside it.

Neighbourly love and karma

Neighbourly love is closely connected with karma and Reincarnation. Martinus describes the returning effects of actions as arcs of fate that may reach the being in the present life or in later lives. Alongside these arcs, the faculty of humaneness grows from life to life. This faculty is identified with neighbourly love and can neutralise a returning dark effect when the being has already outgrown the tendency that created it.

In this analysis, suffering has a transitional function. It changes the being's mentality from hatred and violence towards love. As the being becomes unable to do evil, some dark karma becomes superfluous; it no longer serves the purpose of teaching the being not to create such actions. The result is described as forgiveness of sins through transformation, rather than as an external cancellation of the law of cause and effect.

The same principle applies to the relationship with the microbeings in one's organism. Martinus describes the organism as the living space of other beings and assigns the individual responsibility for its care. Food, habits and the maintenance of healthy conditions therefore belong to the practical application of neighbourly love towards the microcosmos.

Forgiveness and the overcoming of enmity

Forgiveness is a central expression of neighbourly love. Martinus relates it to the example of Christ, who forgave his persecutors and prayed for them. The persecutor remains a living being, even when acting from an unfinished mentality. To forgive is therefore to refuse to continue the chain of hatred, revenge and suffering.

Forgiveness does not depend on agreement or complete understanding. Martinus writes that love can remedy mental differences before the parties understand one another's viewpoints. Where love is absent, differences become anger, hatred and intolerance; where it is present, the beings can forgive one another's deviations and avoid turning difference into war. This is why tolerance belongs to the practical expression of love.

The neighbourly ideal therefore includes enemies as well as friends. Martinus describes the finished human being as one who has ceased to put the self first and instead finds satisfaction in being of advantage to the neighbour. The direction of desire is changed: happiness is no longer sought through the neighbour's defeat or exploitation, but through the neighbour's well-being.

Practical love and mental sovereignty

For Martinus, neighbourly love is demonstrated through conduct. The practical behaviour of the individual has a more fundamental influence on others than theoretical knowledge. Tolerance, humanity and gentleness can spread from one person to another, while knowledge remains secondary if it is not embodied in a loving way of life.

Martinus also describes loving conduct as something that must be practised. A Danish-only article compares the development of a loving way of being with training in an art: study is insufficient without daily exercise, patience and learning from mistakes.

The practical ideal is expressed as serving rather than being served and giving rather than receiving. In Martinus' analysis, directing one's wishes in favour of the surroundings leads towards mental sovereignty, because the being is no longer governed by the desire to overcome its neighbour or secure advantage at the neighbour's expense.

Martinus contrasts this sovereignty with the relation between master and slave, where both are bound to material dependence and the neighbour is reduced to a tool or possession. To see the neighbour as a living fellow being rather than as matter is therefore part of entering the kingdom of heaven and escaping mental imprisonment.

Martinus applies the principle to the way one thinks about others, responds to injury, treats animals and cares for one's organism. The common principle is that the other being is experienced as living life, not as a thing, instrument or obstacle. This perception is connected with world peace, since lasting peace is described as an effect of universal love.

The lives of the great world redeemers are presented as examples of what this form of love brings to its originator. Martinus associates their self-offering and service with mental sovereignty, freedom and the highest experience of life. The example illustrates the movement from taking life from one's surroundings to giving life and promoting the joy of other beings.

Neighbourly love in the spiral cycle

Martinus places neighbourly love in the transition from the dark zone of the spiral cycle to the real human kingdom. The animal kingdom is dominated by instinct and gravity, while in the human kingdom feeling is increasingly intellectualised by intelligence and intuition. In the finished human being, feeling appears as universal love and becomes the primary capacity of consciousness.

The unfinished terrestrial human being still carries the killing principle and the one-poled attraction of the animal kingdom, but has begun to develop the humane faculties that belong to the next kingdom. The emergence of neighbourly love is described as part of the birth of the human being in God's image. Martinus also connects universal love with peace and cosmic consciousness.

In the real human kingdom, neighbourly love is described as a natural daily need. The being's life is organised around giving, service and the happiness of all living beings. Martinus identifies this state with the culmination of neighbourly love and with the human kingdom's freedom from hatred, intolerance and revenge.

See also

• Karma
• Reincarnation
• The Eternal World Picture
• Cosmic consciousness