OPENING SPEECH – COSMIC MUSEUM GOOD FRIDAY 2024:

What is this museum, and what is the purpose of the exhibition "Window to Eternity"?

Well. Today we have the science of the physical world, all its chemical elements and physical laws. Scientists did not invent this, but got there by studying nature. Nature was their teacher, the professor of professors and supreme authority. If a statement does not agree with nature, then it is simply not true. All the pioneers of science have been humbled before this teacher. How would they have found something new without this sensitivity to nature? Scientific research for these pioneers was thus not about reading books, but about reading in "life's own book". Impartial, these pioneers made sure to stick to what was confirmed by life itself.

We can choose to like the laws of nature or not, but the laws don't care. If I jump off the balcony I will hit myself. It's my choice. Apparently there are many who use the laws of nature to make bombs and misery. Yes. But that is not because of the laws of nature. The laws of nature are morally neutral, so to speak.

What, then, is missing?

Yes, as we know there is quite a bit left. First of all, we haven't been given any explanation of what life is. We have not been given an explanation for this ongoing miracle that is nature. Why is it spring? One might answer that it is due to the movement of the globe around the sun, but a physical cause is no real explanation. Why does the globe circle the sun year after year, so we can live and be so comfortable here? Why all these flowers, birds and fruit? Why did the Earth develop from a glowing lump of lava hanging freely in the sky to a paradise where even Mozart and Chopin had their turn? By chance?

And what does natural science have to offer an unfortunate person who has lost a loved one or a child? It cannot direct the way back to happiness, and it can’t even explain why one should not kill. Yes, isn't it rather the case today that science constantly offers new and more dangerous weapons to whoever chooses that path?

No, science did not explain the miracles of life, nor the reason for darkness and misery. Neither did religion. The problem of evil, have not been answered. "Inscrutable are his ways" it says in the Bible (Romans 11:33). Life's biggest questions have not been given a scientific explanation. We were given dogmatic orders about how we should live, and what we were not allowed to do, yes, but they came without an explanation that could be checked with one's own logic and ascertained in one's own life. For those who examined life, it often almost looked as if it could pay to lie, deceive and kill. Hearts grew cold.

But now we do have an explanation! An explanation one can check in ones own life's "book", an explanation that matches our own logic, own experiences and empathy; a spiritual science!
But then the question follows: who can know anything about the spiritual part of life with certainty? Who can see through matter into eternity, as we can see the sun through the curtain?

Martinus could see straight into eternity!

Without education or prior knowledge, the cosmic world opened up to Martinus 103 years ago at Easter 1921. It’s up to ourselves, to examine the "evidence". The cosmic symbols and analysis are the fruits of Martinus’ cosmic ”sight”, and initiation in 1921. This we can control based on our ability. Martinus describes the Third Testament as ”spiritual science”. We don't have to believe in anything and we choose to study the cosmic laws or not. Our destiny lies in our own hands. We may like the cosmic law of fate or not, it does not change.

It became Martinus' task to explain this. With the cosmic view, you see that we all really will "reap as we sow" here and now, and from life to life. Thus reincarnation, but Martinus did not use this word at the beginning. The word is not found in the 1st volume of the Book of Life. Martinus didn't get it from others, and he didn't make it up. He described the cosmic reality as he saw it, and therefore had to find his own words for what he saw.

Martinus saw why some people are born into health and others into addiction and misery. Without multiple lives, there can be no explanation for such. But when death does not exist and we live on after each so called "death" enriched by our experiences, it looks completely different. In the eternal worldview Martinus could observe, that "darkness" is only a brief contrast, we all go through to learn to distinguish between good and evil. Otherwise, we continue to hurt and kill like the intelligent animals we are. With the cosmic view, Martinus saw the Earth as a school, where we learn what not to do. In the Bible it says that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They ate and ate, and today all this knowledge of suffering has given them new ”eyes”. Today, Adam and Eve face a new threshold. They are standing in front of the promised window to eternity.

The Third Testament's eternal worldview explains why evolution is not over. Once the plant was on the threshold of becoming an animal. The carnivorous plant. Today we are in the transition from animal to human. We remember the sphinx in the desert. It has an animal body, but a human head. We are in a forced development where we will leave the selfishness that we brought with us from the animal kingdom behind us. This is the root of all so-called "evil". There is also a reason for the humane part. Our empathy bears witness to the suffering we ourselves have been through in past lives. The pacifist once was a great warrior. He has been killed himself, many times, and he now understands that he should not kill anyone. Spiritual science adds to this, that he/she cannot actually kill anyone, and that all the misery he creates or all the good he does, actually comes upon himself.

Cosmically speaking, it can really pay off to do good. The ideal of love is thus elevated to science, with the difference that the prerequisite for this science is not academic study, but empathy. To the extent that the principle is understood and felt, war and killing cease. Jesus' words on the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), becomes scientific truth. Those who kill and torment other people do not know that they are tormenting themselves in the long run. This explains the Easter mystery. A man refuses, in spite of torture, to hate his persecutor. Instead, he prays for them; they really don't know what they are doing, he notes.

As we know this situation, Jesus on the cross, received a strange explanation. "He had to die for our sins," it claims, as if an almighty, all-loving God would torture an innocent person for what others had done. The real explanation of the event is, that this is an example of how to face fate, and why. It's pedagogy: First we got theory, then a practical example and now comes the explanation which Christ promised would come: "I still had much to say to you, but you cannot bear it now" (John 16:12). Without a continuation, that did not make sense. He announced a counselor to come and reveal the whole truth. Martinus opened a window to eternity. His analysis of the eternal "I", the creator, and its eternal ability to create and experience "life" and matter. Life explained as an eternal triune principle.

We will all experience that we are eternal in due time, Martinus says. First through small "cosmic glimpses" and then, when our empathy has grown together with our logic ability, as a permanent new ability. "Men" and "women", "he" and "she", are about to become real human beings. Christ beings. Evolution has an end goal: "Let us make mankind in our image", God says according to Genesis 1:26.
/SJ