This explanation of the origin of consciousness is from my book ´The Undiscovered Country – A Non-religious Look at Life after Death´.
Chapter Twelve
Consciousness
The question of what consciousness is has puzzled humankind ever since we realized that we had one, and in this chapter, we shall have a profound look at the intriguing question: What is consciousness, where does it come from and where is it seated?
Many questions have been raised in connection with consciousness and they mainly run along the lines: What produces consciousness? Is it produced by the brain in the same way as bile is produced by the gall bladder? Or could it just be a by-product from the activity of the central nervous system? Does consciousness actually dwell in the brain? Do we really have firm evidence that the brain is the seat of consciousness? Does an animal have consciousness? Can consciousness be produced artificially and if it can, then why do intelligent computers not have it? Can we really say that the many aspects of consciousness such as intelligence, thoughts, memories, sensations, awareness, emotions, creativity, abilities, character traits, and sense of self can be located in specific areas of the brain? The question of what consciousness really is, is a hard nut to crack.
I looked “Consciousness” up in my encyclopedia and found the following reference: “No simple, agreed-upon definition of consciousness exists. Attempted definitions tend to be tautological (for example, consciousness defined as awareness) or merely descriptive (for example, consciousness described as sensations, thoughts, or feelings). Despite this problem of definition, the subject of consciousness has had a remarkable history. At one time the primary subject matter of psychology, consciousness as an area of study suffered an almost total demise, later re-emerging to become a topic of current interest”
I also happened to come across the following quotation about consciousness by physicist Nick Herbert:
“Science’s biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all. About all we know about consciousness is that it has something to do with the head, rather than the foot”. (20).
This seems to suggest that what consciousness is, is as big a puzzle as what electricity is. We know it is there, but what it consists of and where it comes from is quite a mystery.
Let us explore this mystery.
The Human Energy Field Is a Field of Information
As we have already seen, Martinus says that ray-formed matter is the very matter that consciousness is made of. We have established that there is a field of energy surrounding the physical body. This field of energy consists of electromagnetic rays and waves, and it was established that the rays and waves of the electromagnetic spectrum carry information through their wave interference pattern, and that they furthermore have an almost infinite capacity for storing information.
When a typical characteristic of ray-formed matter is that it contains information, then it would be logical to assume that the ray-formed matter of the energy field that surrounds our body also contains information. This means that the energy field or aura could be a field of pure information and consequently identical to our consciousness.
A Thought is an Electrical Impulse
Let us consider what a thought is. A thought can be said to be a stream of information. Furthermore, it can be said to be a sequence of electrical impulses. We now know that thoughts are of an electrical nature, because an electroencephalogram can measure thought activity through the placing of electrodes on the head. When we think of something, an apparatus can pick up the activity of thinking because this activity is of an electrical nature. The apparatus can measure that thought activity is going on. This means that a thought is an electrical impulse. If a thought were not the same as an electrical impulse, it would not be measurable. But the thought is measurable. This means that electrical brain impulses and thoughts are basically the same. They are the same because ray-formed matter contains information and is electrical in its nature. We cannot have an electrical impulse without at the same time having a capacity for storage and transmission of information. The two are intrinsically interwoven like sunlight and heat. Just as there can be no sunlight without heat there can be no electrical impulses without a transmission of information. So a thought is an electrical impulse, which contains information. This is an essential point to establish: Thoughts are electrical impulses and as they consist of ray-formed matter, they carry information.
At the same time as the electrical impulses contain information they are a kind of force. We said that they constitute the life force of all living beings. So the function of the electrical impulse is double: it carries information and it carries life force.
Field of Information Is a Field of Consciousness
Our physical body is surrounded by a field of electrical impulses that carry information. This field of information is what constitutes our consciousness, says Martinus. He points out again and again that the fourth state of matter, the ray-formed state, is the very “stuff” that consciousness is made of.
“Through the “ray-formed” state of matter the individual gets material for the creation of its thoughts, its consciousness and will. It is in these “ray-formed” materials that the “I” creates its “spiritual” or “soul” bodies such as the bodies of instinct, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory which again determine its creation of the body of gravity or the physical body”. (Livets Bog II, § 590).
It has been mentioned that the ray-formed state is the primary state of matter, in fact, the most important state, from which the other states emerge as a result of condensation and removal of heat. It was mentioned that the physical world is “only” condensed or “frozen “consciousness matter. In a similar way, it is the ray-formed matter of our consciousness that determines the formation of the physical body.
This means that the physical body is formed on the basis of the information stored in the energy field. The energy field is the primary factor in the creation of the physical body and it holds all the information necessary for the creation of that body. The energy body carries the very program for the creation of the physical body; it is, so to speak, the software that defines and determines the final characteristics and appearance of the physical body. The primacy of ray-formed matter over physical matter is another important point to establish, as its implications for our understanding of the role of the parental genes in embryo genesis and the orchestration of the cell renewal process all through life are far-reaching. I shall return to these points in chapters 14 and 15.
When ray-formed matter or electrical impulses constitute the “stuff” that our thoughts consist of, then this means that our consciousness is seated in the energy field or aura that surrounds the body. The field contains all the information about who we are, and this information lies encoded in the ray-formed matter as wave interference patterns. In the field lies all the information about the particular individual that we call “I”: our thought function, our knowledge, our will, our memories, our creative ability, our patterns of behavior, our talents, our intelligence, our reason, our morality, our personality and character traits, our emotions, our anxieties and phobias, our tastes and dispositions, our sympathies and antipathies, and our sense of self. All this information is there in the ray-formed matter of the human energy field and this ray-formed matter constitutes our consciousness.
This is pointed out by Martinus and it is furthermore in accordance with common logic that when there is a field of ray-formed matter surrounding our body, and when a characteristic of ray-formed matter is that it carries information, then this field of information would be the carrier of our consciousness. This means that our consciousness is not located in the brain, as it is generally believed, but never proved. Our consciousness lies embedded in the rays and waves of the energy field that surrounds a body that is alive. The position of consciousness cannot be restricted to any specific place in the body, let alone the brain; it “spills out” from the body and cannot be “held in” because its nature is such that it penetrates physical matter and radiates out from it in all directions in the same way as light radiates out from a light bulb without being “held in” by the physical matter of the glass sphere.
But what, then, is the function of the brain? The answer is that the brain and nervous system constitute an advanced electrical system that functions as a kind of receiver and emitter of the ray-formed matter of the energy field.
“Thought energy constitutes a higher form of “electricity”. In this connection one must understand that the brain- and nervous system of the living beings constitutes a higher electrical system for the reception and emission of energy waves, in other words a higher system of broadcasting. The thought function or spiritual life of any living being is in reality a higher form of emission and reception of “radio waves”. But “radio waves” manifest in different lengths. And science has still only defined the long wavelengths, which can be emitted and received with an ordinary, technical “radio receiver”. Even though it has something, which it calls “short waves”, it still hasn’t defined the microscopic “wavelengths” which can be emitted and received by the brain. But these wavelengths are nevertheless a fact for the advanced, occult researcher and they constitute the fundamental principle in any form of manifestation of consciousness or spiritual life. All sorts of thoughts, ideas or conceptions are in reality the “I”’s perception and manifestation of these microscopic “radio wavelengths”. All consciousness is thus identical to both the “I”’s own manifestation and emission and also identical to its reception of the emitted “radio wavelengths” of other beings, shaped as thoughts. But in order to manifest such an energy exchange various apparatuses are needed. The best known of these apparatuses is the physical brain with its nervous system. Behind this there are similar systems for finer and finer energy, which the “I” over time becomes able to use”. (Martinus: Collection of articles, 7.12, from 1933, my underlining added).
The brain and nervous system constitute “a higher system of broadcasting” which can receive and emit microscopic “radio wavelengths”. This means that the brain neither holds nor produces consciousness, it merely transmits it. The brain functions as an apparatus of reception of the consciousness energies, not only from the person’s own energy field, but also from that of other living beings. In a body that is alive there is a constant exchange of energies taking place with the surroundings (This was actually pointed out in the afterlife experiments (cf. chapter 8), where Gary Schwartz was able to demonstrate that the heart and brain wave pattern of a specific person was measurable in the brain wave pattern of his interlocutor). The energies emitted by other living beings can simply be measured as being present in the auric field of persons with whom one communicates. Not all of these energies are measurable with the apparatus we now have at our disposal; indeed some are so fine that they are outside the range of what can presently be picked up. The Martinus quotation is from 1933, and since then we have been able to detect and measure many more subtle energies than the long wavelengths mentioned in the quotation, but the range of fine energies emitted and received by the brain may operate at wavelengths that are beyond what is measurable at the present time.
Our consciousness contains a load of information, a lot more information than we are consciously aware of. When the information is filtered through the brain, it is brought to our day-conscious awareness. The brain can then be seen as the “plug” or decoder that transforms the ray-formed matter into something that we become consciously aware of.
To illustrate this we can try to think about a particular episode from our childhood. We can suppose that the information about the episode lies embedded in the ray-formed matter of the energy field, and when we start thinking about it, the information is first located in the field and then filtered through the brain where it is experienced as a memory with all the sensory and emotional implications that it may have. In this sense the brain is analogue to a radio receiver that transforms the ray-formed matter of the radio waves into sound waves that can be picked up by the ear. The brain does not produce the electrical impulses of the information stored in the field. The information enters the body via the brain, which is simply the gateway between the spiritual and the physical body. In the brain the electrical impulses from the field are decoded. According to the instructions the brain then receives from the “I” that remembers the episode, the brain can pass on new instructions and give the memories a physical expression through, for instance, speech, which can then be picked up by the ear of our interlocutor. We can say that a selected part of the immaterial ray-formed matter of the energy field is decoded in the brain. Then, through a complicated process involving vocal cords, tongue, airflow from the lungs and various muscle groups it can be given the material expression that we call speech. We can say that a part of the immaterial ray-formed matter of the field is materialized through speech. When the thought is materialized through speech, it gets a physical expression and becomes a sound wave accessible to the hearing apparatus of our surroundings. The people we are speaking to will be able to pick up the sound waves from our vocal cords and pass this information on to be decoded in their brain. The brain then passes the information on to the field where it is confronted with the information already present there. In a sense, the brain dematerializes the sound waves and transforms them into electromagnetic impulses that are confronted with the ray-formed matter already present in the field. According to the information present in the field of the interlocutor, he will make an appropriate response. Based on his experience, he will select a response, which is then materialized through his vocal cords. In this way, we can say that a conversation is a two-way flow of ray-formed matter that is materialized (made accessible to our physical senses) and dematerialized through the brain. This is an exceedingly complicated process, but we are so used to it that we are not even aware what a sophisticated apparatus we are making use of.
Not all the information embedded in the human energy field is constantly transferred to the brain, so the field has a lot more information than what we can normally access with our day-consciousness. We know that when we are trying to remember a name, it may take some time before we locate that bit of information. The name is “just on the tip of the tongue”, but until the “search engine” in the brain has found the information, it is still out of the reach of our conscious awareness, and it can take some time for the name to be localized and enter the brain. When it finally does, we will triumphantly utter the name.
During hypnosis or trance, we may be able to access parts of the information in the field that is not normally accessible. Also during altered states of consciousness, we may be able to access other parts of the information in the field. Children who remember past lives are able to access parts of the information in the field that pertains to a former incarnation of the same “I”. This information pops up as memories from former lives that the “I” has lived, but as the individual settles more and more into his present incarnation, these memories are generally pushed into the background. The human energy field contains a good deal more information than we are aware of in our everyday lives. The amount of information that we are not consciously aware of is generally referred to as our subconscious.
But our “reception apparatus” or brain can also at times pick up thought energies from other people as direct thought transfer or telepathy. This point will be explored further in chapter 16. Through meditation or “fine tuning” of our reception apparatus some people are able to access energies from the cosmic sea of consciousness. When this happens, new ideas or “input” are perceived as having been received from somewhere beyond the self. This reception is indeed at the core of all mystical experiences.
Another aspect of certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum is that they can penetrate or pass through solid matter easily. We know that radio waves and microwaves are not stopped by walls, glass, wood or flesh. We can stand in front of the radio and block the entrance path of the radio waves into the receiver, but that is of no consequence. The rays pass right through our bodies into the receiver. This aspect of ray-formed matter also means that the ray-formed matter of the human energy field or consciousness can and does penetrate our body. The energy field not only surrounds the body but it vibrates through it and as it does, it simultaneously supplies the body with life force. The dual characteristic of electrical impulses is that they carry both life force and information.
The Creation of Consciousness
Martinus says that the most essential part of the “I” is its consciousness, and this consciousness is electrical in its nature. Because it is a type of energy, it is indestructible according to the first law of thermodynamics. This means that the consciousness survives the death of the body. But this does not explain where consciousness comes from.
As already mentioned, an agreed scientific theory for the origin of consciousness does not exist, so in order to present a theory for the origin of consciousness my sole source is Martinus. To this date, I have not come across a better theory for the origin and creation of consciousness.
In order to understand the origin of consciousness we have to look at life in a perspective that spans millions of years. According to Martinus, eternal life is not something that we will get eventually, but something that we are already living right in the middle of right now, and this means that all living beings are on an eternal journey through spiritual and physical realms (21). On this eternal journey the living being moves in cycles upwards in a spiral – up and up and around and around it goes. Each cyclic movement is defined by two contrasting principles: light and darkness. Light and darkness are each other’s prerequisites: if darkness did not exist, then light would not exist either. The contrast of light and darkness is necessary, as it constitutes the very basis for all perception. We can only experience on the basis of contrast. We can only experience light on the basis of dark, sweet on the basis of sour, love on the basis of hate etc. Contrast is absolutely fundamental for the renewal of the life experience of the living beings.
One cyclic passage of the eternal journey of living beings is like a journey along the edge of a circle. The light predominates in the upper part of the circle and darkness predominates in the lower part. Light is more predominant than darkness in a cyclic passage. Only a third of the passage is predominated by darkness. The light represents the spiritual world and the darkness represents the physical world.
The physical world comprises the mineral, plant, animal and human spheres of existence – it is these spheres of existence that we experience here on the physical plane.
The spiritual world consists of matter in the ray-formed state. It is a world that is as real as the physical world, but because of its high vibrational level, it is inaccessible to our physical senses. Just as the physical world has several realms or kingdoms (mineral, plant, animal, and human), so does the spiritual world. The realms or kingdoms of the spiritual world are by Martinus called: the kingdom of wisdom, the divine world, and the kingdom of bliss. In the spiritual realms the beings experience the highest love and wisdom and the most sublime bliss. In these realms the spirit of God embraces them and they are now “at home” – this is where we all really belong. The spiritual world is the primary world. Our sojourn in the physical world of darkness and hardship is “only” a necessary arrangement in the sense that it constitutes a contrast to the light and love of the spiritual world. During our sojourn in the darkness, which comprises millions of incarnations, we experience hardship, misery, unhappiness, hatred and lack of love, and these aspects of darkness condition us to re-experience the light once we have been satiated by darkness.
At a certain point of its passage through the cycle, the living being reaches the culmination of light. The light culminates in the divine world (the highest realm of the spiritual level) where the living being is one with the primary consciousness of the divine being or God. Here the being experiences the culmination of sublime love, as love is the basic tone of the universe. After living in this culminating love and light for eons, the being eventually becomes satiated with the light in exactly the same way as we become satiated with any type of manifestation that we have repeated a large number of times. Once the being becomes satiated with the experience of light, it needs to experience contrast to the light, in other words, it needs to experience darkness. But darkness does not exist in the spiritual world, so, in order for the experience of darkness to be possible, there has to be a place that facilitates this contrasting experience to the light. The physical world is such a place; it is the place where the beings that are satiated with the light of the spiritual worlds go to experience darkness. The physical world is the dungeon of the cyclic passage. It is the winter zone of the passage, whereas the spiritual worlds constitute the summer zone. So from its position in the last of the realms of light, the kingdom of bliss, the being enters the physical world. But in order to experience the physical world, the being needs a physical organism.
As long as the being lives in the spiritual world, it only has and only needs a spiritual body, consisting of ray-formed or spiritual matter. After having lived for eons of time in the spiritual world, the being needs to enter the physical plane in order to experience a reality that is different from the spiritual reality. So it is thrown out of Paradise, so to speak, and enters the physical plane. But when it thus enters the physical plane, it is not an expert in physical perception, nor can it create in physical matter. It has no “tools” in the shape of talents for physical creation nor does it have organs and senses with which to experience the physical reality. The ability to create in physical matter and the ability to sense the physical reality is something it has to build up through practice over time. All beginnings are difficult, so the living being begins its manifestation in physical matter with something quite “simple”: mineral matter. The first manifestation of a living being in the process of entering the physical plane are in mineral matter. Later the living being develops and refines its creative ability to encompass plant organisms and later again animal organisms. So the spiritual being in the process of entering and perceiving the physical world first manifests in mineral matter, then, via the transitory stages of lichen and mosses, it develops into a plant and later, via the transitory stage of the carnivorous plant, it develops into an animal. From many incarnations in the animal world, it gradually develops into a human being. This is a long and slow process spanning millions of years and millions of lives and in tune with the development of more and more sophisticated organisms in physical matter, the “I” behind the creation of these organisms also develops its consciousness and its ability to experience the physical reality. Martinus puts it like this:
“The formation of the organisms of living beings is logical creation. And logical creation cannot exist without having a living being as its originator…We can see this creation as a reality when we look at the giant process of creation that surrounds us. Before the plant kingdom, we see the mineral kingdom. We see how the movements [of which matter consists] develop into manifestations of plant organisms. In these plant organisms, we meet the very first form of what we call “consciousness”. This consciousness is still so frail, that all the functions of the “I” of the plant are automatic. This automatism is conveyed by the first basic energy, that of instinct. The plant still cannot perceive or experience day-consciously on the physical plane. It can only vaguely “sense” what is pleasurable and what is unpleasurable. It has no idea of what the pleasurable and the unpleasurable actually is. But by only experiencing the pleasurable and the unpleasurable through thousands of years it creates the ability to literally lean towards the pleasurable. There is no other living organism, which is exposed to destruction and injury to the same degree as that of the plant. For thousands of years it is affected by heat and cold, drought and flooding, and it is also time after time destroyed by animals and humans that need its organism as food, clothing, building materials etc. This gigantic process of injury, which the plant bodies are exposed to, would be pure hell to these beings, if they were able to feel pain and suffering like the animal and the human being, but they definitely are not. Their physical organism is still so undeveloped that they are unable to feel pain and suffering in the same sense as the animal and the human being can. As already mentioned, the plant being can only experience pain as an unpleasurable sensation. But this sensation, which is carried by its instinct, is in contact with its forward driving force, the primordial desire, which conveys the plant’s progress out of the realm of bliss. After having experienced the culmination of bliss of a former spiral, the plant longs towards the contrast to bliss. As bliss is the culmination of what is pleasurable, the contrast to bliss becomes what is unpleasurable and for this reason the unpleasurable becomes much less drastic for the plant being than it is for animals and humans. To some degree, the unpleasurable is actually perceived as a form of pleasure by the emerging plant, but as the plant approaches the animal stages in its development, the unpleasurable becomes real pain and suffering. And something like protection and defense tendencies begin to emerge and these will lead the being towards the animal stages, which are based on the being’s ability to kill in order to live. We see how this principle begins to unfold in the carnivorous plant. In this being, we also see the first stages of what in the animal becomes fully developed digestive organs. And when this stage has been attained, the being is no longer a plant, but has become a much more developed being, it has become an animal.
The consciousness and behavior of the animal is still to a large degree conveyed by instinct, but it has now developed the physical senses. It can smell, taste, feel, hear and see. Thus, it not only has a consciousness that conveys a vague sensation, but it has a fully awake day consciousness. It experiences directly and realistically the physical reality within the areas where its senses can react. But here life is hard. It is in the zone of the killing principle. It has to kill in order to live. It has to defend itself against other animals, which covet its organism as food. A huge amount of animals have to have the organisms of other animals as food in order to live on the physical plane. For that reason, all animals have some kind of defense mechanism with which they can to some extent defend themselves and their offspring against other animals that covet their lives. Some animals can defend themselves against their enemies through their ability to run, others can defend themselves through cunning, others can to a certain degree defend themselves by looking like the surroundings they are in and thus camouflage themselves, so that their enemies do not detect them so easily. So there is a fierce fight among the animals. The beings here persecute other beings and are being persecuted. Thus the animal kingdom is the zone of hatred and darkness…
How would the unconscious plant spirit, which has just arrived from the realm of bliss where it has lived in its memories from a former spiral, but which has no consciousness and no senses through which it can experience outside the kingdom of bliss, be able to achieve the ability to sense, if climatic conditions did not affect it over thousands of years with rain and drought, cold and heat, storm and silence, sunshine and cloudy weather, night and day and the injuries to its organism from animals and humans? How would such a spiritual being be able to sense anything in an outer world if it were not exposed to all these hard, climatic influences? It would be quite impossible to give it the first elementary consciousness-creating influences. If the outer influences did not exist, its instinct and consequently its ability to sense and its emerging life functions would not develop. And if it were not gradually affected by stronger and stronger influences, its development into an animal would be impossible. If the being did not enter a stage where it had to experience dread or fear, what would then urge it to develop its skills in coping with life on the physical plane? If it did not suffer, how would it develop its feelings? How would it be able to experience well-being? How would it be prompted to seek well-being? And how would it get the talents or skills which are developed through these efforts to achieve well-being? How would it get intelligence, if it were not constantly animated by the fear of attacks and the necessity to be superior to its enemies? We see that the hard and difficult conditions under which the animal must live are absolutely necessary. Without these it would get neither feelings nor intelligence. How then would it become the highly intellectual human being in the image and likeness of God?
In the animal kingdom, we see how the first consciousness abilities are trained. But the feeling that is created here is still predominantly that of hatred. And the intelligence that is being developed here is being exploited in the service of this hatred. And this does not serve to create peace, but more war. It is easy to see that such a being is not finished; it is not in the image of God… [Gradually a new sphere of interest emerges]. This new sphere of interest is the first frail human consciousness. It constitutes the so-called “human” side to man… And with the emergence of this stage the animal is no longer a pure “animal”, but it is not a pure “human being” either. The average earthly human of today is such a being.
To begin with, this emerging human consciousness in man stimulates the religious principle…
(The Creation of Consciousness, pages 20-28, extracts).
So Martinus explains that consciousness is something that the being develops gradually over thousands of lives on the physical plane. When a being, who has become satiated with the light of the spiritual worlds, enters the physical plane, it has no consciousness on this “new” plane. Its consciousness can only perceive the spiritual reality. But with its emergence on the physical plane it begins to be gradually able to perceive the physical reality and to create organisms in physical matter. After a manifestation in mineral matter, the being emerges as a plant, and the first vague perception of the outer world begins. The plant can vaguely sense what is pleasant and what is unpleasant. Gradually and over thousands of incarnations the plant being develops its senses through the effects that the outer conditions have on its organism. The emerging physical being develops its ability to see through the effects of light and darkness; it develops its ability to hear through the effects of silence and noise, and it develops its feelings through the effects of the injuries that its organisms are exposed to. With the development of the physical senses of eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, and sensation the being is no longer a plant, but an animal. Through the animal’s exposure to the dangers of the physical world, it develops its intelligence and feelings, and gradually it evolves into a human being.
It is through this process spanning millions of lives that the being, the “I” behind the various bodies, creates its specific consciousness and the senses through which it can perceive the physical plane. This is a slow process, and creating a consciousness suitable for the experience of life on the physical plane is like building a house: we add stone to stone and progress slowly towards the completion of the finished construction. For each physical life we live, we add new aspects to our consciousness: new abilities, perceptions, and talents. New experiences are added almost daily and through these, the being develops his understanding of the workings of the physical plane.
Through the passage of the physical part (or dark section) of the cycle it is so that each time the being loses its physical body, it returns to the spiritual plane for a short sojourn or break away from the hardships of the physical world. After such a short “break”, it returns to the physical world again in a new body, so that it can continue its development towards becoming a perfect human being or a human being in the image and likeness of God, which is the goal of all development on the physical plane.
The experience of darkness culminates in the intermediate stage between animal and human – this is actually the stage at which most people on Earth find themselves today. At our present stage, we are no longer real animals, but we are not real humans either. We become real humans when we have outlived all desires to hate, kill, persecute, seek revenge, steal, brag, gossip, scold, be selfish and intolerant, be dishonest and possessive, and when we no longer desire to eat the bodies of other living beings. When we have reached the stage of the real human being, then peace will reign on the planet and everybody will live to serve others. The aim is to experience darkness through war, killings, and unrest, and then gradually to move away from this zone of darkness. We move away from the darkness when we have experienced it so many times that we have had enough of it. A man, who has had enough of war through his own experience of its brutality, pain and hatred, will, in his next incarnation, be against war and will be an advocate for peace, tolerance, and humanity. Through our own experiences and sufferings, we develop our humane abilities, and finally we emerge as real human beings. We have then benefited from the experience of darkness and have created the basis in our mentality that conditions us to experience the light of the spiritual worlds once more. Once we have reached the stage of the real human being, there are no more lessons for us to learn on the physical plane, and we stop reincarnating in heavy physical matter and continue our eternal existence in spiritual bodies. Our existence as spiritual beings then lasts for eons and eons of time until we eventually reach the point at which we need to experience a contrast to the light. We then re-enter the physical world on a new level and so on….
With each life, we live on the physical plane as plants, animals and humans we add new elements to our experience and consciousness, we add new talents and abilities for creation, and as these consciousness elements form part of our eternal supraconsciousness, they accompany us from life to life. For each life we live, we become more experienced, and more knowledgeable.
We can also put it like this: as the consciousness survives the death of the physical bodies, the being is fundamentally the same from life to life. For each life it adds to its consciousness, it expands and refines it, it adds to its ability to create, to its “stock” of experiences, to its ability to feel and think, adding talent to talent and ability to ability. It develops its intelligence through the challenges it is faced with on the physical plane and it develops its feeling through the sufferings it experiences. The being creates its consciousness like a bricklayer creates a house: by adding stone to stone. In this way and through a process that spans millions of physical incarnations the being creates its consciousness.
We can also put it in this simple way: the consciousness of the eternal “I” sleeps and dreams in the stone, awakes and stirs in the plant, emerges, moves and acts in the animal and starts to blooms in the human being. When the stage of the real human being has been reached, the consciousness has developed into a beautiful flower in full bloom.
The process of maturation of consciousness is prompted by the release of the different basic energies, all embedded in the mother energy (22), so this development will follow an evolutionary path that is similar for individuals of the same species. But the consciousness of a particular being is his and his alone. The consciousness of a particular being is the result of an accumulation of experiences that the being has had and of talents that this being has practiced in former lives. In this way a particular being’s consciousness is unique. As no two beings have had exactly the same experiences through their previous lives, have not been exposed to exactly the same occurrences and hardships, have not had the same desires and dispositions, it is logical that no two individuals have identical consciousness. There will be great similarities within the individuals of the same species, but still our consciousness is ours and ours alone. Our consciousness is something we have built up over millions of lives, and we can say that our individual consciousness reflects our level of development, our accumulation of abilities and talents, our moral capacity, and our level of intelligence. These aspects of our personality are traits that we inherit from ourselves, so to speak, and not something that we get from our parents. We shall look at the actual process of reincarnation and the role played both by the parental genes and by the discarnate “I” in the process of embryogenesis in a later chapter.
Our Consciousness Is the Core of Our Being
Let us recapitulate. We saw in the last chapter that the human energy field could be said to be indestructible or eternal. The energy field consists of electrical impulses or waves that contain information. This means that the energy field contains our consciousness. As the energy field is indestructible according to the first law of thermodynamics and as our consciousness lies embedded in the information carried in the ray-formed matter of the field, our consciousness can be said to be indestructible. This means that our consciousness survives death. Consciousness and post-mortem survival are intrinsically interwoven. At the onset of death the energy field, with its consciousness, is separated from the physical body.
We can then conclude that what is our core being, our essential “I”, is this ray-formed body, this indestructible field of energy and information. The field of energy and information is our essential core, our “I”, the center of our self, where all the information about who we are is stored. The energy field of our “I” is the actual conductor of the vehicle that we call our physical body. In the energy field lies all the information about who we are, and as this information is of an electrical nature, it constitutes the life force of the body.
According to Martinus, the survivor of physical death is this field of energy, the spirit or soul. As energy cannot be destroyed, this means that the field is not subject to wear and tear as the physical body is. As long as this energy field is present in and around the physical body, it causes the heart to beat and the blood to flow, but the moment the electrical field leaves the body, the heart stops beating because there is no longer an electric current to make it beat in exactly the same way as the hand mixer stops whipping when we unplug it.
The claim that the survivor of physical death is an energy field is supported by many near-death experiencers who confirm that they were existing in a transparent energy “body” once they had left their physical vehicle. After being severed from their physical body they could in many instances observe the physical body from a distance, from inside a body of a fast vibrating energy pattern, a body consisting of an electrical field. In spite of not having a physical body, the near-death experiencers claim that their consciousness was exactly the same as it was while they still had their physical body. This supports the claims that the energy field contains the consciousness and the sense of self and that this entity can exist independently of the physical body.
The core of who we are, our “I”, is this energy field that contains our consciousness. All the information about who we are is contained within this energy field. This also means that we are essentially the same person, the same “I”, whether we have a physical body or not. It means that the energy field of the “I” with its consciousness is the essential core of our being, it is who we really are.
The physical body is just an instrument for this “I” as long as it has to manifest in physical matter. And once the physical body, the instrument of the “I”, the vehicle, has been made useless through wear and tear and old age, the “driver” of the vehicle, the “I” in its information loaded energy field, simply discards the heavy old body and leaves it behind. But the driver is still exactly the same, only now without the old vehicle. Because the energy field is life force, the “I” is just as alive as it was before, only the old heavy car has been discarded. The “I” will now enter the spiritual realms and there it will be “carless” until the time comes, when it is ready to re-enter the physical plane and acquire a new car of the latest model.
Whether it is with or without a car, the driver is still exactly the same, and this aspect is confirmed by the near-death experiencers who all say that they felt exactly the same and as alive after severance from the physical body. They were the same person with the same feelings and the same tendencies, only lighter, unencumbered and free. They had discarded their physical vehicle, but they were essentially exactly the same. Their consciousness was the same, their sense of self was the same, they were still the same person, only they were no longer attached to the heavy physical body.
This means that the survivor of physical death is an energy field, consisting of ray-formed matter. As ray-formed matter is not physical, it is also not affected by physical injury. It cannot be destroyed by any type of physical influence. It is above and beyond any type of physical attack. As our consciousness is of an electrical nature, it is indestructible, and because it is electrical, it constitutes our life force. Consequently, we are alive in our electrical field of consciousness whether we have a physical body or not. Our field of consciousness is the survivor of physical death. We are eternal beings.
But then what happens when we die – where do we go and what do we experience? We shall look at these intriguing questions in the next chapter.
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