X1

X1 is Martinus's designation for the I, the eternal, nameless “something that is” of every living being. It is not a body, a thought, a force or a visible personality. It is the experiencing and willing subject behind manifestation: the source from which the being's movements, creations and experience of life proceed. In the triune analysis, X1 is inseparably united with X2, the faculty to create and experience, and X3, that which is created. ^[1]

X1 in the triune analysis

Martinus presents the living being as one reality with three analyses: the I, the faculty to create and that which is created. The three are not three beings or three detachable substances. They are three principles whose connection is necessary for a living being to exist. Without X1 there is no originator or experiencer; without X2 there is no creation or sensing; without X3 there is no created field in which manifestation and experience of life can occur. ^[2] ^[3]

The order of the designations is significant. X1 is the “something” that is; X2 is the creative and experiential ability belonging to it; X3 is the changing result of that ability, including bodies, organs, structures and manifestations. Martinus therefore also expresses the three as the creator, the faculty to create and creation, or as the I, consciousness and organism. ^[4] ^[5]

The triune analysis applies both to the individual son of God and to the Godhead. In the Christian symbolic language, Martinus relates X1 to the Father, X2 to the son and X3 to the holy spirit. The Father is the divine something, the son is the totality of living beings through which the divine something manifests, and the holy spirit is the consciousness or created expression of the Godhead. ^[6]

The nameless “something that is”

X1 cannot be analysed in the same way as an object in Matter. An object can be described by size, colour, weight, form or position, but each such description concerns something created by, or manifested through, the I. Martinus consequently says that X1 has no analysis beyond “something that is”. Calling it beautiful, large, divine or devilish would describe one of its manifestations, not X1 itself. ^[7]

It follows from the distinction between creator and creation that X1 is raised above manifestation as its author and originator. If an attempted analysis is itself a created thought or image, it belongs to X3 and cannot be an analysis of the creator that existed before it. Martinus therefore calls the I nameless and without analysis other than its existence. ^[8]

In Livets Bog, Martinus develops the same point through the distinction between absolute and created reality. The divine something is eternal, whereas the views or pictures through which it experiences itself are temporal. Daily experience consists of a chain of thoughts, sensations and experiences passing before the I; these are created views, not the eternal X1 itself. ^[9] Their temporal character means that the forms of experience are changing expressions of the unchanging source.

Martinus also describes X1 as the “causeless cause”. Within the chain of Cause and effect, every movement or effect can be traced to a preceding cause, but each such cause is itself another movement or effect. X1 is different: it is not movement and cannot be a product of a preceding cause. It is in itself “that which thinks”, “that which creates” and “that which manifests”, and is therefore the first cause behind the ocean of movement. ^[10] ^[11]

X1 and experience of life

X1 is not identical with the senses, brain or physical organism. The organism is a created instrument through which the I can experience and manifest in matter. In Martinus's formulation, the I sees by means of the eyes, speaks by means of the mouth and feels by means of the organism. If the experiencing something were absent, the organism would be a corpse rather than a living expression. ^[12]

X1 is nevertheless the centre to which the movements of experience are related. Martinus describes living beings as the true “fixed points” behind movement: movement cannot experience movement, while a living being experiences and directs it. The I is thus the still reference point in relation to the changing forms of time and space. ^[13] ^[14]

This fixed-point character explains why X1 is not found as a measurable item within the organism. The physical world consists of combinations of movement and therefore of created, changing phenomena. X1 is beyond that field as the source of movement, revealed through the purposeful shaping of movement and the being's will. ^[15] ^[16]

X1, X2 and X3

X1 should not be confused with X2. X2 is the creative faculty—the ability to experience, sense, will and manifest, and the faculty by which the I builds up bodies or instruments for creation in matter. X2 is therefore the connecting and mediating principle between the fixed point and the created world. Martinus says that the creative faculty is eternal and cannot itself have been created, but he does not identify it with the I: the I possesses or exercises this faculty. ^[17] ^[18]

Nor is X1 identical with X3. X3 is the created or manifested side: bodies, organs, structures, matter and the changing results of creative activity. The physical body is an expression of X3, but X3 is wider than one body. It includes the succession of organisms and other created structures through which the I's experience of life is maintained. ^[19] ^[20]

The distinction is therefore not between three independent layers that could exist separately. X1 without X2 would be unable to experience or manifest; X2 without X1 would have no source or user; and neither could appear as a living being without X3. In the ultimate analysis, each of the three is “something that is”, because each is an eternal principle in the inseparable unity. In their functional distinction, X1 is the experiencer and originator, X2 is the ability to create and experience, and X3 is the created manifestation. ^[21] ^[22]

Eternity, organisms and reincarnation

Martinus's claim that X1 is eternal does not mean that any particular physical organism lasts forever. A physical organism is a temporary tool and can wear out, be replaced and be renewed. What is eternal is the I together with the creative faculty and the organism principle that makes the succession of bodies possible. The organism principle is therefore not abolished when a physical body dies. ^[23]

This is the basis for Martinus's account of Reincarnation. Through X2, including the superconscious structure and its fate-element, the I can create new bodies when former bodies are no longer usable. The individual physical life is consequently one manifestation in a continuing process rather than the whole existence of X1. ^[24] ^[25] The changing body belongs to X3; the I that uses and renews such bodies is X1.

The relation also appears in the principle of living beings within living beings. An organism is a world or living space for microbeings, while the being that inhabits it is itself a microbeing in a larger organism. The same triune structure is present at every scale, in the microcosmos, mesocosmos and macrocosmos. ^[26] ^[27]

X1 and the Godhead

The universe as a whole is also analysed as a living being. Martinus describes the universe's X1 as consisting of all the X1s or I's of existing living beings; its X2 consists of their creative faculties; and its X3 consists of their created organisms and manifestations. Since this living being comprises everything that exists, it is identified with the absolute and true Godhead. ^[28]

This does not erase the individuality of the many I's. The individual living being remains a local, eternal centre of experience, while all such centres are included in the universal living being. The other beings are the Godhead's organs or instruments for manifestation and experience, and the individual's daily experience is therefore an interaction between its own X1 and the Godhead. ^[29]

In this sense, “in him we live and move and have our being” describes the relation between individual X1 and the universal X1. The Godhead is not a being somewhere outside the universe; it is the all-embracing living reality in which the individual I's exist. ^[30] ^[31]

X1 and the development of consciousness

X1 is presented as unchanging, while experience and manifestation develop through the eternal interplay of X1, X2 and X3. Through successive organisms, experiences and forms of consciousness, the being acquires new abilities and increasingly perfect ways of using its creative faculty. The spiral cycle describes the recurring cosmic setting for this development, from darkness through the spiritual kingdoms and onward into a new cycle. ^[32] ^[33] ^[34]

At the culmination of development, the being's relationship with the Godhead becomes conscious in the form of Cosmic consciousness. Martinus describes the great birth as the condition in which God's consciousness, manifested as universal love and wisdom, becomes permanently present in the being. The individual I becomes conscious of its unity with the universal living being. ^[35] ^[36]

Thus X1 is the simplest and highest designation for the subject that lives through every changing manifestation. It is not a fourth principle beyond the triune analysis, but the first of its three inseparable principles. X1 is the nameless I; X2 is its eternal faculty to create and experience; and X3 is the created organism and manifestation through which that experience becomes possible. Together they constitute The Living Being, and in their universal form they constitute the Godhead. ^[37]

References

[1] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[2] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 8.3

[3] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[4] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[5] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 41.1

[6] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 8.3

[7] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 6.1

[8] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[9] Livets Bog 2, section 536

[10] Livets Bog 3, section 686

[11] Livets Bog 2, section 550

[12] Menneskehedens skæbne, section 1.12 (*)

[13] Livets Bog 1, section 240

[14] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 16.11

[15] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[16] Livets Bog 3, section 686

[17] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 6.2

[18] Livets Bog 2, section 540

[19] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 6.3

[20] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.21

[21] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[22] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.3

[23] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[24] Livets Bog 2, section 528

[25] Livets Bog 3, section 748

[26] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 14.21

[27] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 21.7

[28] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 21.7

[29] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 21.7

[30] Livets Bog 2, section 540

[31] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 21.7

[32] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 11.35

[33] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[34] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 36.5

[35] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 21.7

[36] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 33.72

[37] The Eternal World Picture 3, section 32.11

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36]

[37]