Laws of Life
Laws of Life
(The Way of Man. 9.33.) The Concept of Law
(9.33.1) By objective laws we understand the existence of constant energy currents in constant material relations. This stability makes it possible for the worlds and the processes of manifestation to endure. What “law actually is” is a problem that occupies even the planetary hierarchy. Probably only the highest kind of cosmic consciousness can perceive it.
9.34 Laws of Life
(9.34.1) The most important laws of life are the law of freedom, the law of self-realization, and the
law of activation. They afford man a free choice.
(9.34.2) The law of freedom guarantees the individual’s freedom under law.
(9.34.3) The law of self allows the individual to determine his tempo of development.
(9.34.4) The law of activation indicates the manner of the individual’s development through self-initiated consciousness activity.
(9.34.5) The other four laws of life – the law of unity, the law of development, the law of destiny,
and the law of reaping – are laws that man simply has to comply with or else to take the consequences of his own actions.
(9.34.6) The law of unity guarantees that the unity of all life will be realized some time. The law of
development and the law of destiny guarantee the never-ending development of all life. The law of reaping guarantees the implacable justice of life.
(9.34.7) Laurency has formulated these seven laws of life in such a way that they are comprehensible to those at the stage of culture and can serve to orient and guide them. They are in full agreement with those laws which the planetary hierarchy has formulated differently for those who as disciples have been initiated into the esoteric knowledge.
(9.34.8) The laws of life are absolutely valid. The individual may very well choose to disregard them. But in so doing he only increases the number of his incarnations, until he will apply them some day. The laws of life fall under the law of necessity, which means that they are inevitable.
(9.34.9) There are many temporary laws that are valid on special conditions, a necessary consequence of the law of freedom in all natural kingdoms, particularly the fourth, in which reason has awakened so that the individual himself (even though unconsciously) takes the responsibility for his actions.
(9.34.10) The esoteric history of the development of human consciousness into ever increasing understanding of reality is basically a continuous reformulation of the eternally valid laws of life, adapted to mankind’s comprehension. Only in our times does mankind stand a chance to see the power of ideas and the importance of the form the ideas receive at the different stages of development.
9.35 The Laws of Life are the Basis of Our Life
(9.35.2) The saying “from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” has of course been misinterpreted like most such sayings. It means that anyone who does not care for the laws of life and their application will be increasingly disoriented. Of course we need not have a precise knowledge of the laws of life, but certainly be law-abiding citizens and righteous people who do the right as far as we see.
9.37 Esoteric Life View
(9.37.1) The life view, not the world view, is the essential study, the knowledge of the laws of life,
the laws of consciousness development of all life. This knowledge is not primarily intended to help yourself to develop individually, as the egoist always thinks, but to help everybody to develop. We develop the most quickly by forgetting our own development and living for that of others, for unity in which we have a share. To live and to realize is the meaning of life, not to make up theories and to speculate.
(9.37.2) The mental system of Pythagorean hylozoics (KofR 1.4–41) is quite sufficient as a world view, in all its simplicity all we need to live right. What is important for man is not to solve the problems of world view but those of life view, the problems of the art of living, the art of right thinking for right living, of acquiring the ability to understand everybody with love. We must acquire that ability ourselves by tireless, purposeful work. In this epoch of hatred this requires more energy than ever and in addition self-forgetfulness, forgetfulness of this foolish personality, so dear to us, a short incarnation, a day in our long life.
(9.37.3) The essence of the esoteric life view is the knowledge of the fact that everything practically is energy, since matter acts as energy. We live in a cosmic world of energies. To discover these energies and to use them in the right way is the foremost task of the esoterician. That is a fact, which the majority of so-called esotericians have considered very little. The individual himself is an aggregation of energies that have made him what he is and determine what he will become. Very few of the energies of life discovered are used in the right way. And in that respect, too, people are quite unaware of their profound ignorance, a fact which most great authorities, full to bursting point of the learning of whole libraries, have such difficulty in seeing.
(9.37.4) In the cosmic motion, energy pours from the highest to the lowest world. This current enables atoms to compound into matter and compounded matter to be active. Atoms receive and in their turn emit energy. It is a give and take without cease. This is a law of life and applies with ever stronger force in ever higher kingdoms. Anyone who wants to keep to himself what life gives him, not sharing it with others, becomes a hindrance to the unfrictioned distribution of energy and so a hindrance to evolution. This is the central problem of life. Everything is a loan and we can claim nothing our own save with self-
assumed ownership. “Freely ye have received, freely give.”
(9.37.5) The energies pouring down through the causal envelope and keeping the lower envelopes alive act differently on different individuals, since everything is unique: the individual’s envelopes, the matter of those envelopes, the consciousness in the envelopes (due to unique experiences in all the processes of involvation, involution, and evolution). The energies pouring down are unique, since the compositions of atoms making up those currents are always unique. General features are shared in common, particular ones make up individual character. No two conceptions are absolutely identical in all respects, but essential features are shared in common. All of this makes itself felt in the law of freedom and the law of unity, two fundamental laws of life, both reciprocally dependent and inescapable: the individual character of all things and the unity of all things.