The textbook of life. The laws of the mind. Martin Kojc
awakening in this country. Perhaps this awakening is only apparent, but it may well have deeper roots and be the external manifestation of an inner reality. In this context the idea was born to reintroduce Kojc's work. This work appears to be designed specifically for our time -- a time which is unsettled and chaotic, a twilight of old values and a time of creation of new ones. Perhaps the Textbook of Life appears like a Phoenix. As we are taught by deep psychological thought and by the teachings of the great religions, nothing happens by coincidence. Martin Kojc again became mature and in season within the field of the collective unconscious, which C.G. Jung called the reservoir of human ideas, archetypes and symbols.
I did not know Martin Kojc personally. I did not have that privilege. I got to know him through his book, which I encountered more than six years ago on one of the shelves in the Trubar antique store (in Ljubljana, Slovenia). On first reading it did not impress me as anything special. But then came times, moments, when I, like everyone else, experienced failures, disappointments and pain. It was then that I discovered the true meaning of the word: textbook. Among the flood of different kinds of textbooks relating to everything concerning human life, there were no, or very few, textbooks on life, signposts in the fog that covers the present and the future. How very little use to a person are those three factors which we hail so much and on which our whole life is supposed to depend, i.e., heredity, environment and our own actions. We frequently cannot pilot our life without spiritual directions. This holds true for every single one of us. This is especially true of our nation (Slovene), which has been paying a bloody tax, every year giving its best to the sacrificial altar of the goddess Fate. Like sacrificial offerings, the victims placed themselves on the altar. Most of them could not find their way any more -- perhaps they never correctly sensed it. The fact that these people included philosophers, psychotherapists, poets, and artists in general, is only proof of how weak are the roots in Life that this nation has sprouted. What is it afraid of, why does it not have self-confidence, from what is it running, and towards what?
Kojc's Textbook of Life gives answers to these and similar questions, even though some people might find them too plain, naive and simple-minded. As the Bible saying tells us, the stone which the masons have cast aside has become the corner stone. The psychology of fairy tales also shows us how most often the man who people did not bet on overcomes all difficulties, survives and acquires a pleasant life companion. Kojc is searching in a direction similar to the Little Prince. He knows that the essence is hidden, and that the external is manifested as a mirage (Maya).
We know that Martin Kojc was active in a practical way, that many of his works were translated into Dutch and German, and that he represented one of our nation's great potentials whose full realization was prevented by the last great war. Out of his fertile inheritance we are again acquiring his seminal work. In the last two decades a number of sages have appeared who teach a doctrine that is similar, and sometimes essentially identical, to that of Martin Kojc. Their popularity is great, and the printed copies of their published books can be counted in millions. In essence, these books contain nothing more than the postulates which were presented fifty years ago by Martin Kojc, but which are not a product of this century but rather of the thousands of years since the beginning of civilization, starting with the Vedas. Martin Kojc was influenced by Emile Coué (1857-1926), a pharmacist who postulated that all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis and that it only acquires power as such. Kojc was more in agreement with him in his other postulate which has also become an axiom of alternative thinking of that time and has remained such to the present, namely, that in a conflict between imagination and will, imagination always wins.
The postulates of Kojc's teachings are as follows:
•the significance of cause and effect connections
•observations are the basis for opinions and thus convictions
•convictions create imaginative pictures which correspond to these opinions
•imaginative pictures confirm opinions
•imaginative pictures contain a motorized element which strives towards realization
•existence of reincarnation
Before we begin a more detailed analysis of these postulates, it is important to acknowledge their daring and their probable source in the philosophical movements of the East and of Theosophy. Kojc was familiar with both. His daring was not so much because of the time, which was perhaps not receptive to such ideas, but in the strength of his opinions and his convictions.
The logic of the connection between cause and effect is of course the basis of the life wisdom in this textbook. This is true in teachings regarding this connection, but also the explanation in the context of karma and of course of reincarnation -- teachings which Kojc not only believes in, but also, one can say, knows about. He is that persuasive. Even though he appears to favor the predestination of man, he allows for creative power. If he did not this textbook would not be needed, since everything would be predetermined and decided in advance. We have to admit that he is somewhat unclear on this issue. The closest explanation of the activities which Kojc is suggesting for a full life can be found in the Taoist notion of wu-wei. This notion deals with letting things happen, allowing a natural course of events, and not intervening through our frequently erroneous strong will by which we would only disturb the natural order which operates on Earth as well as in the Universe as a whole. It's essence is a creative passivity which is a well for intuition and inspiration. The best way to think of this concept is to imagine a natural order which acts for the good of everyone. Many individuals would like it to act only for their own benefit, and for this and because of this they strive, but in vain...
Not only in the actionless activity of wu-wei, but also in other beliefs Kojc is very close to the Taoist fundamental notions about the world, man and life. Kojc renamed Tao a primeval power, but in terms of meaning the properties of the two are quite equivalent and overlapping. Tao does not do anything and yet everything gets done. According to Kojc, the primeval power uses matter for its various manifestations. One of these is man. Tao, or the primeval power, is thus in everything, fulfills everything and manages everything according to its own order, which is to a person often irrational and impossible to understand. The words Tao and wu-wei are not mentioned anywhere, but it appears that Kojc knew the Taoist world view and concepts.
Opinions are formed on the basis of observations, ones own experiences and those of other people. These opinions get further reinforced according to the principle that we see that which we know. This can have a very beneficial influence, but can also lead into negativity because this is a way in which a negative picture of the world, the environment and people can become entrenched. Since negative opinions usually are in contradiction with the world, it follows predictably that they engender doubt in an individual, and with doubt ambivalence and neurosis. Martin Kojc was a psychotherapist in private practice, and it appears that he understood the process of the genesis of neuroses. He believed that the synthesis of a person's opinions -- i.e., his convictions or conception of life -- strengthen in him a corresponding view or picture of this world. In any kind of relationship of a person to the world, the pictures always necessarily correspond with the person's opinions or convictions.
According to the well known psychotherapist Robert Assagioli and to sages of times past, notions -- or mental pictures and ideas -- have the ability to create conditions for corresponding actions. In the world of the Magi this is expressed in another way: Every picture on a mental level strives to become reality on a physical level. Kojc writes that he is trying to persuade the person of his time, and of our time, who has become increasingly more doubting and seemingly more knowledgeable. He is trying to persuade that person that conviction is the one thing that determines fate, and that a person is in fact led by his wishes. In the words of Emile Coué: Do not blame fate but yourself. It is only the belief that something good or bad can happen that makes possible the realization of either. The essence of Kojc's postulate consists of its attempt to lead the rationalists of this century to the realization of the cause and effect connection between convictions, which are formed by opinions, and the external manifestations of these convictions.
Imaginative notions, mental pictures and ideas are as elemental as that which is seen in the visual world. The Bible in Genesis speaks precisely of this when it says: In the beginning there was the Word and the Word