I’ve been asked to discuss the universal law and free will and to answer the dilemma presented by free will being given to all of us and the circumstances seeming to exist in which free will is abrogated. I won’t be able to look at the full subject in one article. I’ll need to work up to it. Here what I wish to do is look at the universal law itself, where it derives from, and what its purpose is.
A great deal of the discussion of the universal law is couched in code words so that its interpretation wouldn’t be known to the uninitiated, lest they manipulate that knowledge. We’re told quite regularly that the dark ones have indeed manipulated us through their knowledge of the esoteric. Here’s SaLuSa reminding us of this, for instance:
“The Laws of the Universe are quite clear and irrevocable, and both the dark and Light must obey them. The one that has been considerably used is the Law of Attraction, although for a large part of your lives you have not understood the implications of your actions. The dark Ones have understood it, and taken advantage of your ignorance by empowering themselves at your expense.” (1)
This need to keep the wisdom of God from the “uninitiated” and the “princes of the world” is the reason why Jesus said: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” (2) Swine want what they can eat and they cannot eat pearls. Therefore they turn on one who casts them indigestible pearls instead of digestible corn.
The early Christian fathers, according to St. Paul, “speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of the world knew.” (3) “If our gospel be hid,” he continued, “it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.” (4) Wisdom in those days was hidden behind metaphors and formulas.
Centuries after St. Paul, Pseudo-Dionysius was still counselling his follower Timothy: “So, my good Timothy, you must guard these things in accordance with divine command, and you must never speak nor divulge divine things to the uninitiated.” (5) Surely what happened to Jesus and the early church fathers showed the great risk that the prophets faced from the princes of the world.
Therefore much of Biblical lore and other ancient teachings was written in a code. When speaking of the soul, the prophets described it as a lamp ever burning on the altar (of the heart) or a firebrand plucked from the burning. The Divine Mother becomes Wisdom and Royal Glory. The Father becomes the Silence and the Wilderness.
Zarathustra said that God the Father created the universal law through God the Mother – whom he, like Solomon, called Wisdom: “He who in the beginning thought, and the Light was filled with lights, Himself through wisdom [the Mother] created (the Law of) Righteousness.” (6) We individual souls are the lights that fill the Light of the Father.
If we come down to the present century we see enlightened masters of the East saying somewhat the same thing using slightly different terms. Here Sri Aurobindo says that the Mother is the source of the universal law. She’s the cosmic Womb or Matrix of whom he speaks.
“Something … imposes on [these elements] the law of their being, and what could that be but the Womb, the matrix of original and indestructible matter, the plasm which moulds the universe and out of which it is moulded?” (7)
It’s in recognition of the fact that God the Father is still and silent and God the Mother is active and sonic that Zarathustra would say: “God the Lord hears (us) through the Holy Spirit.” (8) Terms like the voice in the silence or the voice of one crying in the wilderness make plain the fact that the Divine Mother hears and speaks but the Father does not. The Father is the silence; the Mother is the voice. The Father is the wilderness, because order can’t be imposed on him and no law can bind him; the Mother is again the voice crying in that wilderness.
The function of the universal law is to provide bumpers that keep us created life forms from going offtrack and keep us moving towards God, our ultimate destination. The universal law promotes the enlightenment which fulfills the purpose of life, as King David noted: “The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” (9)
When Jesus said, drawing on the Biblical code, that “Wisdom is justified of her children,” (10) what he’s really saying is that the Divine Mother’s natural laws bring us children of God from unconscious awareness of our identity as God to conscious awareness. Achieving this result “justifies” or validates Wisdom, or the Divine Mother. Put another way, the efficacy of the Divine Mother’s universal laws is proven by the result: that they bring God’s children to their destination, which is absolute knowledge of their identity as the Father. That is their purpose.
The Mother’s law applies to the domain of materiality but has no application to the Father. This is the underlying logic below Sri Ramakrishna’s statement that:
“The world consists of the illusory duality of knowledge and ignorance. It contains knowledge and devotion, and also attachment to [lust and greed]; righteousness and unrighteousness; good and evil. But Brahman [what I call God the Father] is unattached to these. Good and evil apply to the jiva, the individual soul, as do righteousness and unrighteousness, but Brahman is not at all affected by them.” (11)
The Divine Mother is the necessary but not the sufficient cause of the natural law. God the Father is the sufficient cause. He creates the law through the Mother, but the Father is still said to be the source of it. And so the sages will say, along with Sri Ramakrishna, that “He who has made the law can also change it.” (12) Ultimately the Father makes the law but he does so through the Mother. And he who made the law can break it, change it, overlook it. No law can hold or bind the Father.
This fact provides the basis of the Law of Grace, which we’ll be discussing at some point. Later we’ll also hear Matthew Ward discuss how the Creator broke his own law of free will by decreeing that there would be no more nuclear detonations in space.
And finally what is the reward of the one who keeps the Mother’s laws? She says through Solomon:
“My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments.
… Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies: and all things thou canst desire are not to be compared with her.” (13)
“My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind [it] continually upon thine heart, and tie [it] about thy neck.
When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” (14)
So God is the ultimate source of the universal law but he creates, preserves and transforms it through his identity as the Divine Mother. Keeping the law carries its own reward. And following the law leads us to the Father.
Footnotes
(1) SaLuSa, March 14, 2012, at https://www.treeofthegoldenlight.com/First_Contact/Channeled_Messages_by_Mike_Quinsey.htm
(2) Matthew 7:6.
(3) St. Paul in I Corinthians 2:7-8.
(4) St. Paul in II Corinthians 4:3.
(5) Pseudo-Dionysius in Coln Luibheid, trans., Pseudo-Dionysus, His Complete Works. New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1989, 58.
(6) Zarathustra in Duncan Greenlees, trans. The Gospel of Zarathushtra. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978, 187. [Hereafter GZ.] Incidentally the “God” who Zarathustra worshipped, Ahuramazda, was in fact Sanat Kumara. “The Ascended Masters teach that the supreme God of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda, is Sanat Kumara. Ahura Mazda means “Wise Lord” or “Lord who bestows intelligence.” (Elizabeth Clare Prophet, “The Many Faces of the Great Guru, Sanat Kumara,” 2 July 1993, at https://www.tsl.org/masters/sanat_kumara/default.htm.)
(7) Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1983, 3.
(8) Zarathustra, GZ, 227.
(9) Psalm 19:7-8.
(10) Jesus in Matthew 11:19.
(11) Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1978; c1942, 152. [Hereafter GSR.]
(12) Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 817.
(13) Proverbs 3:1 and 3:13-5.
(14) Proverbs 6:20-3.a