How Does the Experience of Life Take Place? Lecture by Rune Östensson
Welcome to this evening lecture.
How does the experience of life take place?
That is the main question that we are all thinking about.
Life and consciousness are crucial questions to us.
In Martinus' Cosmology, consciousness, life and the experience of life are the same thing.
That is not the case in the natural sciences.
There, you can imagine life without consciousness, for example.
Here we are dealing with "the hard problem of consciousness".
As the Australian Philosopher David Chalmers has put it.
You can summarize this as follows:
How can electrical impulses in our brain
become inner, spiritual experiences?
They become qualities and different kinds of feelings.
A physical brain causes something that is not physical.
This is a problem that still needs to be solved.
Two weeks ago, I and my wife Anne attended a seminar on consciousness in Sigtuna (Sweden).
Rubert Sheldrake was there, and Stuart Hameroff.
Stuart Hameroff is an anesthetist, but he is also very interested in research on consciousness.
The topic of this alternative seminar was the following question:
Many imagine consciousness as a kind of field, which is not completely dependent on the brain.
Consciousness has to comprise something more than that.
And it can even exist outside of ourselves.
Still, I missed the following aspect there:
The question of the I. Who am I? Who experiences things?
Who has consciousness?
Many people think that when you have consciousness,
then it is your consciousness that experiences things.
The I and consciousness are regarded as identical,
even in alternative research.
The experiencing I is seen as less important,
but they do study consciousness to a great extent.
But who experiences life? Who has consciousness?
Martinus has shown this in his Symbol No. 5, "Cosmic Unconsciousness".
Here, we see question marks and different colours (yellow, red, green, and so on).
In Martinus' Cosmology, these are energies of consciousness.
Martinus tells us about six energies of consciousness.
Everthing that is created is a mixture of those energies of consciousness.
But here they are completely unstructured.
You don't know how they are connected and there is no final result.
There is no I and no superordinate unity for consciousness.
You really miss the I here.
And then we see the physical body here (the orange circle).
At the moment, the energies of consciousness are associated with the physical brain.
This world picture corresponds to the world picture of the natural sciences.
But Martinus has also drawn the spiritual structure here on the symbol,
even if you don't believe in this in the natural sciences.
This is a spiritual structure that exists behind physical life.
But people don't believe in that.
This is Martinus' Symbol No. 40, "The Sign of the Cross".
This symbol shows us what is missing in current research.
Here, we see microcosmos and macrocosmos.
Here, people carry out "crosswise" research through matter.
We study microcosmos, in order to understand the building blocks of matter.
And we go deep into macrocosmos, into space.
All the time, we try to understand the creation of the world,
by analysing matter, "crosswise", along the horizontal line.
But as you can see,  we also have a vertical beam symbolizing life or “lengthwise” research into matter.
This beam is connected to meaning.
In order to reach the beam of meaning, the beam of life,
we need to go into mesocosmos.
In microcosmos and macrocosmos, you will not reach life itself.
You are too far away from the experience of life.
It will always be from the outside, so to speak.
Here, we find ourselves with our I and our consciousness,
that regulates this universe, this cosmos which is our body.
This will be the future object of research.
But how can we study life objectively, when life itself is a subjective matter?
That is the question.
But how can we study the subjective in an objective way?
We have to find a new method of research.
All human beings will begin to study
their own minds and their own bodies,
where we have our I and our consciousness.
Here, in Martinus' Symbol No. 6, we see the complete picture.
Here, the six energies of consciousness have a structure.
( - Is there a pointing device here, by the way?)
We also see an upper part. We have an I and a superconsciousness,
and a mother energy, regulating the cosmic energies of consciousness,
so that we are able to create an experience of life.
And the I, with its ability to experience and create,
How does the experience of life take place?
In ordinary science, you may imagine this as something rather passive.
An experience would not have to be created, but we could just open ourselves to it.
But Martinus shows that this is an eternal, spiritual principle.
We have an ability to create an experience.
This is what it is about, and this takes place down here, in the X3 section.
Among other things, our physical body, but all our experience is situated here in the X3 section.
This is outside of time and space.
But where does the experience of life take place? Where does this happen?
Well - we have the I that experiences things.
But the I, with its ability to create and experience,
will always be outside of time and space.
And how can we then study our experience?
When the central part of the experience is outside of time and space.
One very central aspect in Martinus' cosmology
is illustrated in this picture.
Here, we see a path that seems to become more and more narrow, even if it has the equal size all the time.
This is the principe of perspective.
This is the Alpha and Omega of the experience of life.
Martinus writes as follows:
"Thus, the two principles, 'X2' and 'X3' of the triune principle together constitute a 'principle of illusion'."
"It is this principle that we meet in daily life in the form of anything coming under the concept of 'perspective'."
"Therefore, here in 'Livets Bog' we will define this principle by the expression, the 'principle of perspective'."
As we have seen, all sensory perception would be impossible without this principle."
"But as all sensory perception is impossible without it"
"then this principle must be the very highest analysis of sensory perception and thereby of life itself"
"for life and sensory perception are, of course, identical."
"So the 'principle of perspective' constitutes the solution to the 'riddle of life' itself" (Livets Bog, vol. 2, sect. 549).
And the principle of perspective can create contrasts.
Here, we have the principle of cycles.
A cycle is really an arrangement of contrasts.
We have a zone of darkness.
Here, we have the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, the dark zone of the cycle.
Here is the zone of light in the spiritual worlds.
All living beings are travelling through this spiral cycle, through darkness and light,
in order to renew their cosmic consciousness.
This is a fundamental principle of Martinus' cosmology.
All of us are situated in cosmic cycles,
which contribute to the constant renewal of our consciousness.
Otherwise, it would die.
An eternal stay in the light would lead to the extinction of our consciousness.
We will always have to return to darkness.
At the moment, however, we are longing for the light.
But after a long stay in the light, we will be satiated by this.
Then we will start longing for this light.
The return to the world of matter will be the light to us.
The plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, and so on.
In this way, the journey through the spiral cycle will always be a journey towards the light to us.
In this way, the experience of life will be kept alive.
Through the creation of contrasts our consciousness will always be renewed.
But what does a living being experience?
Seen from a mesocosmic perspective, we will experience individuals.
"Thus, any form of human society established on account of common wishes or desires"
is identical with 'matter'" (Livets Bog, vol. 2, sect. 480).
Here, we see a collection of matter, a union of living beings.
It is not relevant what kind of matter this is.
It will always be a union of living beings,
which is seen from a certain perspective.
This will be experienced as a solid unity.
Here we see separate living beings in matter.
And we can also see what holds this matter together.
Here, is is even Martinus' cosmology, at the Martinus Centre in Klint in Denmark.
There is a common longing for studying Martinus' cosmology that holds this matter together.
This is another depiction of matter in Martinus' Symbol No. 7, "The Principle of Life Units".
This could be seen as the structure of the universe.
Life units within life units.
This is also a very central aspect.
We will always find ourselves in mesocosmos.
That means that microcosmos will always be where we come from.
Microcosmos represents darkness to us,
or something that we experience as small.
Macrocosmos, on the other hand, is what we are longing for.
And we also experience macrocosmos as something large.
And we are situated in between.
That is very important.
We have the ability to build matter in our bodies.
In the spiral cycle, this matter or this area is behind us.
We have already gone through the spiral of atoms and the spiral of cells, and so on.
We can use this as matter, seen from this perspective.
If we could move down there, it would be exactly as large.
But seen from our perspective, it is small and can be used as matter.
All living beings are situated in between, in mesocosmos.
Macrocosmos gives us a space to live.
And from microcosmos we have matter, which we can use for building different structures.
This cooperation between the three cosmos is very essential.
Another perspektive of matter are particles and empty spaces, or stardust.
This is macrocosmos, but it could be microcosmos as well.
Martinus says that there is no real difference here.
There are particles and empty spaces, suns and planets, in both macrocosmos and microcosmos.
The atomic kernel or the sun, with its electrons and planets respectively.
Now I will read a small poem that summarizes this:
Star light seen far away
Crystallized in cosmic coldness
Reflexes of light in the eye of the soul
In order to become matter, the stars must be at a certain distance from each other.
at a distance from us, so that we can see them as matter.
And they have to be crystallized, in cosmic coldness.
It is the energy of feeling that is able to materialize those particles and hold them together.
And reflexes of light in the eye of the soul - this is the I and the superconsciousness that experience those unities of matter.
"In its deepest analysis, matter is a combination of stars."
"It is a nebula, a Milky Way" (On Funerals, ch.18).
The natural sciences agree with us on this; it is about atoms, atomic kernels and electrons.
"The original form of matter is thus a cloud of stars. Out of this cloud of stars, everything is created."
"Out of this cloud of stars, experience or God's communication are created."
"Everything, regardless if it is solid, liquid or gas, regardless if it is earth, air, water or mineral, is, in its basic analysis, a cloud of stars."
This is from the book "On Funerals", where Martinus writes extensively about microcosmos.
There are many beautiful pictures of star clouds, where we can only see the light really.
In this case it is our macrocosmos.
"Any kind of 'substance' or 'matter' is, then, in reality a vision of 'light."
"Not unrelated to this,"
is the description in the Bible of the Godhead's first form of creation as the genesis of 'light'"
"The next results of divine creation – the genesis of globes, plants, animals and humans – "
are only sense impressions, regulated and aided by the 'principle of perspective'" (Livets Bog, vol. 2, sect. 497).
Consequently, everything is only light or constrained fire.
But it looks very different, thanks to the principle of perspective.
Seen from a certain perspective, all matter on the physical plane is only matter of fire or sun light.
Here, we see the sun as a symbol for such a particle of fire.
And from a higher perspective, this particle of fire can also be used as matter,
by beings who are very high above us in macrocosmos.
To us, however, the sun is the life-giving sexual centre of the solar system.
This centre gives life to the earth and all planets.
This is also quite simply a particle of matter.
And Martinus says that when a particle of fire is overshadowed by plant consciousness,
it will become plant matter.
But when animal consciousness overshadows the particle of fire, then animal matter will be created.
This is phantastic. The overshadowing by the I and by its consciousness
creates the image of animal or plant matter.
But without water, everything on the physical plane is only mineral matter.
The periodic system or all atomic structures are only mineral matter.
Now we will change our perspective once again.
Movement. Everything flows, "panta rei".
"Movement is therefore incontestably the most prominent characteristic of life" (The Eternal World Picture, 15.2).
But this is not all.
"On the physical plane, there has never existed anything but movement" (Livets Bog, vol. 6, sect. 2340).
"and there will never exist anything but movement."
"Here, there are absolutely no living beings, no matter, no time and no space."
"Here, absolutely nothing but movement exists"  (Livets Bog, vol. 6, sect. 2340).
These are strong words: Absolutely no living beings exist on the physical plane.
"But movement can only take place, when something is moved."
"And this something will be experienced as 'matter' by the senses."
"Everyhing in the universe, except movement, exists in another dimension" (Livets Bog, vol. 6, sect. 2340).
But now this has become somewhat tricky, don't you think?
Everything that we experience, all life, exists in another dimension
And even the experience of life.
But what is moving then?
Well, what is moving, are the six basic energies.
With regard to the 'divine something' which is the source of all phenomena and is the I behind the 'living being', it emerges as a fact"
"that this something has the ability to 'see itself'.This 'seeing' is what we call "'consciousness' (Livets Bog, vol. 2, sect. 536).
Here, we have a definition of consciousness.
We all have the ability to create an image of ourselves.
This image is our consciousness.
It is not the same as the I, but we create an image.
This continuous creation of images is consciousness.
And here we see ...
(Someone in the audience wants to take a photo of the quote.)
Here, in Martinus' Symbol No. 11 we see the I of the universe or of God.
The I is the white disc which is behind the whole universe in this symbol.
And we see the violet mother energy, the X2.
It is also behind everything here.
But there are a number of holes or openings in the violet mother energy.
In this way, the I, the X1 of God, is able to ...
Unity turns into multiplicity.
God creates an innumerably large number of images of himself.
Unity cannot be experienced.
Stillness, unity, cannot experience itself.
It has to be mirrored in something.
This is the principle of X2.
Seemingly, X1 gets split up.
But X1, the I of the universe, cannot be split up. It is the cosmic atom.
Atom means indivisible.
But X2 is the principle that seemingly splits the I into innumerably many small I's.
I have my I, and you have your I, and so on.
But in our innermost being, we are all unified in the same I.
Through the many sons and daughters of God, God gets an image of himself.
And that image will always be here in the section of X3.
In the whole of the spiral cycle, in the plant kingdom, the human kingdom, the spritual worlds, and so on.
Here, God will continuously receive images of himself.
He experiences his eternal being.
This unity could never experience itself, without the fantastic principle of X2, which splits up everything.
Similar things have been said by the physicist David Bohm (1917-1992).
He also said that there is an indivisible wholeness behind the creation.
And that the universe has a holographic structure.
However, this is not a static hologram, but Bohm calls it a "holomovement".
I find the principle of holograms extremely interesting.
Just in order to repeat this:
If you want to get an image of an apple,
then you have this laser beam,
and you split the laser beam,
so that one beam will be reflected on the apple.
And the light bounces back onto the holographic film.
The other laser beam, however,
gets split up and is only going through mirrors
meeting this first light on this holographic film.
And where those split waves meet, there we will get an interference pattern.
A large number of wave formations, which will not tell us that much.
But the magical thing is
that when you take a laser beam again,
and it shines onto the holographic film,
then the apple will appear in three dimensions, and it will even move into the room.
A three-dimensional image of the apple, that is just magical.
I think that this tells us something about the universe.
You need to split the light and let it meet again, in order to create an image.
If we would translate this into this hologram:
The light of God's unity, God's laser or consciousness
will shine forth, but it has to be split up by X2
by those mirrors
and then God will meet himself, his own split light,
and here, in the meeting between the split laser lights,
an interference pattern will be created, in the X3 section.
And we as human beings will always be able to create this interference pattern.
With the light of our consciousness we continuously create this hologram.
Then we get the whole creation here in the X3 section.
I think it is very exciting that we have the same principle here,
in the hologram as well as in the universe and in God.
God cannot see himself,
if he does not split himself in order to be mirrored in all those divine beings.
This really applies to a cosmic hologram.
You can also see it like this, as in Martinus' Symbol No. 31.
We as living beings are at different stages in the spiral cycle.
Here we see one living being and the universe.
Depending on where it stands, it can see a particular part of the cosmic hologram.
That is a part of the ocean of knowledge surrounding us.
What you experience in this eternal hologram or in the universe,
will be entirely dependent on what experience you have and on your stage of development.
There is a psychologist who has coined the term "personal resonance", Robert M. Anderson.
He said that you could ask yourself - if there is such an ocean of knowledge,
why can't we surf freely, gaining access to all the information here?
No, Robert M. Anderson said, we can only gain access to those things
which we have experienced ourselves in our inner self. He calls this "personal resonance".
I think that he said something very important here. It depends on our experience and our memories.
But we also have another exciting question here.
There is a so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" .
Bohr and Einstein and other people discussed how the experience of life takes place.
Is there really solid matter?
Or does matter exist as wave formations?
And they concluded that there is a wave-particle duality.
Sometimes there are waves, sometimes there are particles, but how come?
This is due to a collapse of the wave function.
When you observe something, it turns into matter.
But when you don't observe it, but just leave the experiment alone, then there are wave formations.
When our consciousness meets the outer world,
then there will be a collapse and everything turns into particles.
In other words: Outside of ourselves there are only a great many vibrations and frequencies.
We are all only wave formations.
There are spiral cycles within spiral cycles of frequencies.
But why do I see you as solid matter?
Yes, because when my field of consciousness meets those energies,
the I and its superconsciousness will cause a collapse of the waves.
Through my senses, I will see you as solid matter.
But in the deepest sense, there is no solid matter here on the physical plane.
There are only wave formations that are translated into solid matter by the physical senses.
I think it is quite interesting
that they have included an observer in this model of the wave-particle duality.
An observer that causes the collapse of the waves.
So how does the experience of life take place in practice?
You see an object outside of you.
Through the light it reaches your eyes and becomes electrical impulses in the brain, and then ...
it moves into the spiritual nervous system and the spiritual brain ...
and then it goes "upwards" into superconsciousness,
where it gets in resonance with the register of experiences.
It reaches the I, where the energy is turned and becomes expression in X3 , the experience of life.
According to Martinus, we don't only have a physical brain and a physical nervous system,
but we also have a spiritual brain and a spiritual nervous system, as the next step.
Our whole register of experiences is in X2, with talent kernels for memory and experience.
All information goes through the talent kernels.
You could say that we see with our past.
But if so,  how can we see new things?
If we are only able to see with our earlier material of experience?
This is a very important question.
If we see with our experiences, how can we see anything new?
Here, I am thinking of super frequencies.
In music, we have the tone A, 440 hertz.
Then we have overtones, 880 hertz, and 1320, and so on.
If you play a chord, it is not only these tones that are vibrating.
There are also a number of overtones, which are connected to this frequency and which are also vibrating.
I think that our experience takes place in a similar way.
It is not only about exactly the same thing, but when we get information,
it will get in resonance with many experiences within us.
Vibrations will be initiated.
And then we will be able to create a new image with those tones and overtones.
The body of intuition, too, will probably be able to create new ideas,
when we put together new images.
Otherwise we would only be able to see with old things.
By activating many places, tones and overtones, I think we can create a new image.
But these are difficult questions which we can talk more about later on.
Here I will read another poem.
Who turns the light?
Lets life be united in standing waves
Another universe?
But still
Only you
And I
Yes, that is another question.
Who turns the energies?
The I sends out the energies, turns the energies,
and then they go on into the outer world,
and you will encounter many things in the outer world, but who turns the energies?
The energies are supposed to return to me, but who will turn the energies out there?
Well, I suggest the following idea.
The energies get turned in every meeting.
In every meeting with another universe, a meeting between energies takes place.
And there, they will be turned, in a way.
It sounds as if all of this would take place outside of me.
But my I and my superconsciousness do not only exist here, but also there.
They don't need any transportation.
The I with its superconsciousness exist outside of time and space.
Nothing will have to be transported back.
The I and the ability to experience and create exist everywhere and always in the universe.
We have to remember that we are used to thinking in time and space.
but the experience takes place outside of time and space.
Our whole creation or our longing is directed from the I and into the world.
The I, the primordial desire, the will, the power.
The power inititates the movement.
And movement ist creation of consciousness.
This is what the chain looks like.
But the electrical impulses of the consciousness are so subtle and so weak,
that they need a set of amplifiers and speakers,
the physical body with its organs (electrical apparatuses).
And that is mostly water, about 70-80 %.
Could these organs serve as amplifiers for the subtle waves of the I and of the superconsciousness?
Yes, I think they can, and there is a theory that supports this.
They call it astrophysical masers.
If you have very large clouds of water and water steam in the universe,
then you will get a very large amplification of microwaves.
The water in the universe becomes an amplifier for microwaves.
A forthcoming issue of the magazine "Kosmos" will have an article called "The Organic Electricity" (in Danish).
This article deals with the fact that our bodies and our organs are amplifiers
for the subtle energies of the I.
The primordial desire and the subtle energies from the superconsciusness have to be amplified.
They will be amplified by the brain and the water.
And even my wish to utter certain words aloud,
will be made possible by the mouth and the tongue as amplifiers.
In this way, the physical body is always an amplifier of subtle spiritual waves,
coming from the superconsciousness and from the I.
This lecture is coming to an end. But I would like to conclude
with a poem that summarizes the content of what I have talked about today.
The title of the poem is "The Illusionist".
I take from my innermost, still spring.
Creating images from something, that is
A contrast to my eternal loneliness
becomes multiplicity
through different perspectives.
I hide infinity in patterns of light
that can be measured with physical senses
My thoughts create time
and eternal space
the illusoric solid matter
But the illusion is real, a necessity of life
to give an image of my true being
So all of you are mirrors in my structure of senses
that reflect my eternal "I am"
Thank you for your attention!
The poems were taken from "Den kosmiska tonen" (The Cosmic Tone) by Rune Östensson.
The lecture was recorded on 12 November 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, by "Stiftelsen Martinus Kosmologi".
