Tao, the divinity and the light of life, the cosmic Christ, knows only one law: to give all creatures, all waves of life, the opportunity to pass through their allotted development.
Until they find themselves in the fields of the Infinite, consciously and without doubt.
Our destiny is to recognise the opposites correctly,
firstly as opposites, but then as poles of a unity.
Hermann Hesse
1 Laws?
Life functions more or less automatically without us knowing what the laws are. laws are; the heart beats, the lungs draw in air and give it back again in a clever rhythm, our bodies function more or less, and if they do not do so or are restricted, they regenerate themselves or we will support them in doing so. – The more unconscious we are, the less we have to worry or can worry about; nature works, somehow; bumpy and creaky, but it works, just somehow.
Only when we observe nature, the stars, the seasons, the rhythms of the moon and then begin to make connections with our perceptive mind, then we recognise – often as a happy intuition – laws that are formulated by those who are called to do so. The physical, chemical and other laws of nature that have been established over the course of time, we can recognise as a mirror of universal laws or the grand law on the level of matter.
2 The grand law
Finally Tao is the grand law, the divinity and the light of life, the cosmic Christ, knows only one law: to give all creatures, all waves of life, the opportunity to pass through their allotted development until they find themselves in the fields of the Infinite, consciously and without doubt; until they awaken in the great Oneness; in the fields, in the infinite spaces of light that has its origin in itself.
The force through which all this becomes possible is Love. The first intention that lies in love is called life, constant becoming, development. And that could be seen as the first law, the fundamental axiom of the universe. From this derive some universal axioms or laws, universal rules of the cosmos, so that the will of the Logos for revelation can be fulfilled. This is the order that is laid as a seed in our hearts – the plan for dying and becoming.
3 The divine helpers
The seven rays [1] – the teaching of the seven rays is as old as humanity. They accompany our passage through matter from experience to experience, from suffering to suffering, our path of laughter and weeping, of summers and winters. These seven rays in their eternal play of change are the divine helper and the guarantee that the plan of the Logos is realised. They are the law and the prophets of whom Jesus speaks; we experience this law as a constraint, as fate, as Nemesis – the Greek goddess with the blindfold over her eyes – and long enough as a painful experience. What has to happen is done without regard to person as worldly laws. – It only happens so that we as individuals, and also as humanity as a whole, get on the right track, that is, that we begin to follow again the indwelling divinity.
4 Worldly laws as helper
Give to God what is God’s, that means becoming one with the One Law – that of Light. For this we have, in addition to the happy joy of our heart, also received the understanding which we may use in the sense of the higher laws, in order to avoid at least the worst difficulties on our spiritual path.
And then there is Caesar, to whom we must give (yes must! and with an exclamation mark, whether we like it or not) what is Caesar’s (Matth. 22,21). By this we could also understand the laws made by humans, which help to organise our life together. They are based more or less everywhere (with great local and cultural differences) on a basic scale of values, which we also find in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament. These earthly and social rules are part of the sometimes so arduous fulfilment of those tasks that life must place before us again and again – and we, we may learn through them to understand something of ourselves and our lives that fits to the upper polarity.
5 The “upper” polarity
We live ONE life with two poles – that is the upper, or great polarity.[2] On the one hand, the outer, that which is subjected to time, our personality, which cloaks, like a grey mantle, the radiant brilliance of the soul – the innermost. Through insight, sound reasoning, understanding of the interrelationships, experience of life as a spiritual seeker and inspired knowledge, we can sense how this great law works in us, how more or less easy it becomes to live with the usual human laws and rules, if we remain conscious of the innermost. – We have then stopped calculating and are happy to pay, if necessary, if we have driven too fast or submitted our tax return too late; we smile and are grateful for these reminders to be more attentive and mindful of everyday things. – However, if we experience ourselves as victims, if we feel we have been unjustly treated, then it can be that despite all the good intentions resistance flares up with anger and resentment (which, as always, is psychologically easy to understand), but then we bind ourselves to our (supposed) adversaries with the consequence that the radiance of the soul recedes and the grey mantle remains. And it remains grey, as is then our life.
6 Inner anarchy – the free space for transformation
So what does the beloved anarchy have to do with all this? Anarchy [3] belongs to the law of the everlasting die and become, the everlasting solve et coagula; it arises in the dissolution of the old matrix, the old automatism, the old habits of our blood in our being; it is the prerequisite for another universal law to become effective, namely the law, that God cannot abandon the works of his hands: the spark of the innermost must become a flame, a fire, a light. The radiance of the soul attracts, according to the law of similitude, mighty helping forces coming to us in a supportive, clarifying, dynamising way, like a tail wind, as it were, that pulls us forward into the alchemical processes of transformation: the ignoble is dissolved in the stream of light, transformed. Something like the light-hearted anarchy can help – which is perhaps something like a subtle, radiant, secret not-knowing, a spontaneous reacting to what is needed at the moment.
7 The dignity of man
One more word about the laws of human beings. We know how it is, we know how relative the application of these laws is. Alfred Polger (1873-1955), a well-known Austrian author and feature writer of the 20th century, put it in a nutshell when he wrote:
other than light, nothing on earth is so often broken as the law. And with it also the fundamental rules of humanity, with the consequences of a karmic compensation (according to the Universal Law of Cause and Effect) for those involved, for the lawbreakers and their victims.
It is a milestone in the development of humanity that in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed, Article 1 of which states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Perhaps we can understand this declaration as a mirror of universal laws as a general guideline so that the ground becomes suitable and remains suitable for a longer time for the development of souls.
8 The lessons and their purpose
Spiritual laws do not make mistakes. We experience the world as it is at present, and ourselves in it, since we are the causes of these conditions – with the logical consequence that large parts of humanity are learning decisive lessons and find and open the doors to real life, the doors to the light.
When I look into my conscience, I see only one law, inexorably commanding:
to enclose myself in myself and finish in one go the task dictated to me in the centre of my heart.
I obey.Rainer Maria Rilke
[1] See Jan van Rijckenborgh, The Egyptian Arch Gnosis and its Call in the Eternal Now, Volume 2, especially Chapters 5-8
[2] As the lower polarity we can understand the interplay of great and small, day and night, light and shadow, etc.
[3] An-archos (Greek): vs. the old; the philosopher Paul Feyerabend speaks of ‘serene anarchy’.
