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The Spiritual Laws

© Copyright 2000, 2006 – David Todeschini – all rights reserved

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            This little piece is done in two parts – two separate essays written years apart, that have been merged into a single document used to convey several spiritual messages. The point of this little dissertation I hope and pray will make itself evident after contemplation and perhaps discussion with a group of Christian friends who also have read it.

NATURAL vs. SPIRITUAL LAW

            Natural and spiritual laws are the nexus of the universe. We Christians in America, by the declaration of the Founding Fathers in the preamble to the US Constitution, have established their immutability and traced their origins to the source – God Himself. As we will demonstrate here, obeying the spiritual laws put the natural laws of the universe on our side – so that they work for us and not against us. I was looking for a suitable illustration that I could use to describe how this works as I was putting together the manuscript for a book, when by the Lord’s grace; I came into contact with The Human Kindness Foundation[1] and most notably, Plough Publishing House.[2] Among Plough’s many wonderful books, in the book“Wisdom of the Sadhu”, I found a real-life parable that is most suitable for my purposes in this essay, and so I contacted the publisher for permission to reproduce the piece here. The Bible verses that come to mind as I read the true account of Sundar Singh’s journey through the mountains of Tibet were:

            “For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up”.[3]

            – and –

            “Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends”.[4]

            Of course, there is a litany of others, and the commandment of Jesus Christ in the synoptic gospels to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves,[5] certainly applies here. The story is a real-life story / parable in “Wisdom of the Sadhu”:

            “... Once when traveling in Tibet, I was crossing a high mountain pass with my Tibetan guide. The weather had suddenly turned bitterly cold, and my companion and I feared that we might not make it to the next village – still several miles away – before succumbing to the frost. Suddenly, we stumbled upon a man who had slipped from the path and was lying in the snow. Looking more closely, I discovered that the man was still alive, though barely. “Come”, I said to my companion, “Help me try to bring this unfortunate man to safety”. But my companion was upset and frightened for his life. He answered: “If we try to carry that man, none of us will ever reach the village. We will all freeze. Our only hope is to go on as quickly as possible, and that is what I intend to do. You will come with me if you value your life”. Without another word, and without looking back, he set off down the path.

            I could not bring myself to abandon the helpless traveler while life remained in him, so I lifted him on my back and then threw my blanket around us both as best I could. Slowly and painstakingly, I picked my way along the steep, slippery path with my heavy load. Soon it began to snow, and I could make out the way forward only with great difficulty.

            How we made it, I do not know, but just as daylight was beginning to fade, the snow cleared and I could see houses a few hundred yards ahead. Near me, on the ground, I saw the frozen body of my guide. Nearly within shouting distance of the village, he succumbed to the cold and died, while the unfortunate traveler and I made it to safety. The exertion of carrying him and the contact of our bodies had created enough heat to save us both. This is the way of service. No one can live without the help of others, and in helping others, we receive help ourselves”. [6]

            The most wonderful thing about a parable is that each individual hearing it, can apply the teaching or the moral lesson to the unique situations in his or her own life, and with each subsequent reading of it, although the story is familiar, the message changes, and new jewels of wisdom are discerned as the reader matures spiritually:

            “... But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”.[7]

            Sundar Singh was traveling with a guide – someone who has an intimate knowledge of the terrain, and whose assistance was sought precisely for his experience in traveling those mountain footpaths. His assessment of the situation – even before it started to snow was: “... if we try to carry that man... we will all freeze”. We see that he was willing at that point, to let the unfortunate victim of the weather die on the path. However, Sundar could not bear to just leave the man lying there on the trail to die in the cold. Sundar followed the dictates of his conscience, if not the admonition of the Holy Scriptures; he did not resist the “temptation” to do the right thing, even though the experienced guide advised against helping the man for the sake of their own survival. And so Sundar helped a total stranger against the experienced advice of a man he had hired to take him to his destination safely.

            If indeed it was the guide’s advice to abandon the fallen man; not to even attempt to help him, what do you suppose the guide would have done had Sundar fallen off the path or become ill?  To save his own life, would the guide have left Sundar to freeze to death as well? I believe he would have.

            Sundar Singh, now abandoned by his “guide”, picks the fallen man up off the trail, and carries the man bodily. There is no mention of prayer in the parable; no pleading to God for deliverance, which is conspicuous by its absence, given the tone of the book the story is told in, or it’s possibly implicit in the fact that our Indian Sadhu-cum Christian holy man, is operating in accordance with his scriptural beliefs; he is, as the Bible teaches, walking by faith, and not by sight. As it started to snow, visibility decreased, and his reliance on faith, of necessity, increased:

            “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding”.[8]

            “Understanding” notwithstanding, by acting out of love as Christ had done, and commanded us to do, Singh emulated Jesus Christ, and unwittingly, I’m certain, acted to make the natural and spiritual laws work for him. After surviving the ordeal, it is plain to see that the additional caloric body heat generated by the exertion of carrying the man, and the fact that they were wrapped in the same blanket, was the reason they survived. Conversely, the absence of strenuous activity and “common heat”, is why the guide froze. However, what isn’t so apparent is that while attempting to save the fallen traveler was suicidal in the opinion of the guide, doing the right thing, as the Bible says, turned out to be the most reasonable thing to do, considering the laws of nature.

            There is no Divine intervention here, expressed or implied; only a natural consequence of following or ignoring the second greatest commandment in the Bible; to “... Love thy neighbor as thyself”. The commandments are common to most of the world’s religions.[9]

            God has hidden the consequences / rewards for the breaking / observance of the scriptural laws, inside the natural laws, and the heart of a man who does not deny, and is not afraid to confront his spiritual nature, can “spiritually discern” these truths. Ultimately, as in Sundar’s case, doing the right thing in spite of the apparency that doing the opposite is the correct course, becomes what is commonly called “second nature” – actually, it becomes “primal nature” to someone who is “walking in the spirit”, as Sundar was.

            The evidence is clear – not only for the existence of a living God that can be proven scientifically and forensically, with “...many infallible proofs”, as the Bible says, but for a set of natural and spiritual laws that work seamlessly together without fail or exception; a conscious and intelligent, balanced, and extremely intricate and beautiful design, which is far beyond the pale of the “science falsely so-called” of “Big Bangs” and Darwinist / Satanic fantasies. No cosmic accident, or random mutations over billions of years, could possibly account for it.... not by any stretch of the imagination of a sound mind!

            The fact of the matter is simply this; the laws of the universe were designed by God. If one follows the scriptures in faith, inevitably, he aligns himself with “nature” (if you will), and he ends up being blessed – sometimes totally at odds with reasoned (or even “reasonable”) expectations, and the obverse is also true. The Chinese call this “Yin and Yang”; there is a balance... and the balance is designed.

            The Tibetan guide in the story-parable perished. One must ask how he could have lived with his conscience, had someone from the village walking the path in the other direction, found him and carried him to a warm hearth? And also, one might speculate, had his urgency to reach the village been driven by an attempt to summon help for Singh and the fallen traveler caused the guide to expend more energy and effort for the sake of his fellow man, would THAT have made a difference between death and survival?    These questions are natural, but for Sundar Singh, there was no “moral dilemma” as there was for his guide; in Singh’s mind – because the Word was written in his heart, there was no “decision” to be made.[10]  Confronted with the situation, there was only one conceivable, only one conscionable, one moral, ethical, humane, and right thing to do. Scripture aside, for Singh, leaving a man to die was not an option, and thus he was not conflicted and torn by having to make a decision or even seriously consider that there could be a choice in the matter.

            Sundar knew that he MUST help this man. He did it and reaped the reward that came with it. The guide fell victim to his own selfishness and lack of compassion. One might say that when he acted against what he (also) knew in his heart to be the right thing to do, he unwittingly caused himself to “trade places” with the man (actually, he abandoned Sundar, also) he left in the freezing cold to die.

            Our God is an awesome God, and he works his blessings and his wraths through the immutable and inviolable laws he designed, and whether one chooses by faith to believe in him or not, is irrelevant. The laws operate regardless. I personally, believe; and it is not for lack of evidence that I must have faith; I have all the proof I need. The question the reader should ask if he / she lacks a sound faith is: “When can I stop rationalizing why I should NOT believe, and instead, rest in the sufficiency of the evidence?”

            One cannot have faith imposed on him by force; Faith is a state one comes to as part of a process, and most often as the result of a painful journey or experience. “To be true, it must be true for you”, you will hear it said. However, what IS TRUE, is true whether you believe it or not, and whether you even know  it or not. Truth is not relative to one’s beliefs. If you believe you can fly, the painful truth will make itself evident when you jump off a tall building. TRUTH is a statement that comports to REALITY. Spiritual and Natural Laws are co-dependant; they are immutable, and inviolable. THAT is reality, and it is reality whether or not you choose to accept it, or believe it.

            If we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, we will certainly be blessed – in more ways than one. God “...open(s) the windows of heaven” and “pours out a blessing” upon those who obey Him. Trust in God. Love your neighbor. Do the right thing no matter what the circumstances seem to dictate. You will see that the spiritual laws always work – You will see!

THE IMMUTABLE SPIRITUAL LAWS

            I don’t believe there would be much of an argument among intelligent people concerning the universal and unfailing operation of “the laws of nature”; i.e.: gravity, light, momentum, and the forward progression of linear time. These are laws that everyone is familiar with. We can, I hope, all agree that these laws always work, and that they work everywhere in the known universe.[11]

            Nothing in the physical universe travels faster than a beam of light, which presently[12] has a speed of 186,000 Miles per second[13], and no matter how far light has traveled, it seems that it never slows down.[14] When an object is in motion, it tends to keep moving in the same direction, until other forces act against the momentum and bring the moving object to a halt. Time progresses from past to present to future, and never in any other sequence or direction. Gravity causes objects in space to attract each other, and for spilled milk on Earth to end up on the floor. These physical laws have never been violated. I would imagine that very few people have tripped and fallen UP – banging their head on the ceiling – instead of falling DOWN and scraping their knee. Nobody ever won the lottery by traveling back in time from tomorrow and placing his bet yesterday.

            This is not going to be a lesson in physics, but there are many other physical laws that operate in the universe, that most people are unaware of, such as the strong and weak nuclear forces, the laws of energy and mass (Einstein’s E=MC²), thermodynamics, the law of entropy, and a host of others.

            The natural laws cannot be broken – they always work, and they work without exception; if they didn’t we would be in a whole lot of trouble. Imagine what would happen, for instance, if one day, just for a minute or two, the law of gravity was suspended. All of the planets that orbit the sun would leave their orbits, and their momentum would send them careening off into deep interstellar space. The sun and all the stars in the universe would fly apart into burning bits of rock and gas – having nothing to hold them together. On Earth, the atmosphere would almost immediately percolate off into space, the water in the oceans and anything that isn’t nailed down: cars, people (your new lawn furniture) would just be floating around. All life would suffocate because the air would be sucked off into space. We would drown, suffocate, get hit in the head by a flying tractor-trailer, or freeze to death in the absolute zero cold of interstellar space, take your pick.

            The fact that natural laws exist, and are always in force is indisputable. However, at that point of agreement, some of us part company. While none will dispute that the laws exist, some will debate their origin, and even emphatically claim that the relationship and symbiosis of the laws, the way they interact, all happened by an extremely impossible coincidence of “cosmic accidents”. There is a design to the universe, but some will deny it – and it isn’t so much from a reluctance to face the truth and a desire to escape the obvious; but instead, it is a denial of the God that can hold them accountable; it is the inability to confront one’s own ignorance which necessitates the preposterous conclusion that the most grandiose design imaginable can happen by accident – for this is the postulate one must hold to be true, if one is to deny the existence of the Designer or the Creator that is responsible for the design and the creation of the universe.[15]

            And if there are natural laws that universally apply, it logically follows, that if the Creator designed them, any spiritual laws that are in place would have the same basic qualities; i.e.: that they cannot be violated, are always in force, and apply equally to all, without favoritism or discrimination. Being the Creator of both the natural and spiritual laws, God is the only one who can cause an exception to the rules – and He has done so, and continues to do so on occasion. These exceptions – when we become aware of them – are what we call “miracles”, while those without understanding will pass it off as “inexplicable”, or “a coincidence”, a “fluke”, or an “accident” – anything but to have to call it what it obviously and really is.

            Along with the natural laws of the universe, the Creator gave us the spiritual laws, of which there are many, and although He left it almost entirely up to us to “discover” the laws of the physical universe with our scientific intellect (minds), the spiritual laws which are just as real as the physical laws of nature, are meant to be discovered with our spirit (hearts). The spiritual laws are written down in the Holy Scriptures for us to study and learn, and by doing so, we get to know God in a personal relationship. The problem that our society has in this technological world is that we tend to rely too much on what we think we understand. We can only stand in awe at what the Lord has done, once we come to an understanding of our true nature, or at least come  to a spiritual awakening that transcends all of the secular humanist psychobabble posing as “science” that is bandied about these days.

            We will explore here, four of the spiritual laws that are most easily compared with the physical laws that most of us are familiar with. One might say that all of the spiritual laws or the principles we should live our lives by, arise out of these four; the root of which are two commandments.[16] You will note that I make a distinction here between the law which cannot be violated, and a commandment which can be broken: The commandments are two:

            Matthew 22:37-40 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”.  

            Obedience to these two commandments keeps one from the inevitable consequences of the spiritual laws and the laws of society, for what possible offense can arise out of love? The love Jesus was speaking of here, is the Greek Agape’ [17]; it is undeserved love, an affinity towards one’s fellow man that is an act of the will. “Love” as used in this context, is willed affinity; it is literally “the love of God”; it is everything but erotic (Eros), and we choose to love (Agape’) or not. If we choose not to love, we fall onto the wrong side of the spiritual laws:

Spiritual Law #1        “Like begets like” and “To each according to his own kind”. This law was written very plainly in the first chapter of Genesis, with reference to plants and animals, and we see that in the animal world, birds always seek mates of their own kind, as do all other creatures on the face of the Earth. Eagles do not mate with tigers, and if perchance we (humans) were to force such a hybrid, in no case would we produce a flying tiger that nests on the sides of mountain cliffs and lays eggs. And so it is with the spiritual counterpart of this law. Evil begets evil, and good begets good – 99.99 percent of the time. You may think that by omitting the last 0.01 percent, I am suggesting that this law is not immutable, but such is not the case – see Law #3.

Spiritual Law #2        The Law of the Harvest – “You reap what you sow”. A farmer, who plants corn in his field, expects to see a harvest that is much more than he planted. In exchange for a bushel basket of seeds and a bit of time, the Earth returns to the farmer truckloads of corn. So not only does he reap, but the farmer expects to reap an abundance. His expectation of a plentiful harvest is almost taken for granted. He doesn’t expect that daffodils will grow in the place of corn stalks; he expects to get what he planted. When we do (sow) evil, can we expect anything else but evil to come of it?

            When we do evil, can we expect less of a measure of what we’ve sown to return to us? If a farmer plants thistles (weeds) in the field and diligently water them, care for them, and sprinkle them with Miracle-Gro™, can we realistically expect wheat or a zucchini garden? I don’t think so. Just as in farming, the spiritual harvest takes time, but unlike a crop of corn or wheat which is due in season, spiritual crops know only the “season” of circumstance, opportunity, or God’s will – take your pick. We sow deeds, words, and intentions. We get back “according to his own kind” (Law #1), and usually in abundance. Sometimes there is a long delay before the harvest, or what appears to be a “crop failure”. There is no such thing as “crop failure” – it is an apparency. See Law #3.

Spiritual Law #3        When Law #1 or Law #2 do not seem to operate, it is either an apparency[18], a delay in the harvest, a miracle, or a blessing. Spiritual crops (good or evil) can be said to ripen “in the Lord’s good time”. The harvest is usually plentiful, and the “fruit” of the harvest; the result of what is initially planted or sown, is inevitable. It always has effects – seen and unseen – forever into the future. See Law #4. What may seem to be exceptions to a spiritual law, only seems that way to someone who does not know how the law works. “Exceptions” – or the apparency of exceptions give rise to such things as the belief in “bad karma”[19] (from a previous life) or “good karma”, which can be shown to be the (delayed) harvest of things that were planted long ago (in this lifetime), and long forgotten.

Spiritual Law #4        Effects ripple through time forever. What we do, and what we cause to happen, whether we lie or tell the truth, act or refrain from acting, affects the entire planet to some degree – until the end of time.[20] Man’s problem here, is that the effect of good things are not usually noticed. Since Man is basically good,[21] he seeks good for himself, and starts out with that intent towards others. Good things unnoticed, taken for granted, or delays in the (spiritual) harvest, any and all in combination, aberrate man’s perceptions, and he begins to think that no good comes from doing good. A few disheartening experiences in which his kindness is exploited as weakness; when his love is not returned, when others lie, cheat, and steal, he begins to fall prey to temptations; he experiments with evil causes.

            A good deed done does not end there.

            An unkind word can start a war.

            And sometimes we think that it would have been better if….

            “Surely”, one might say, “that Adolf Hitler’s mother loved her son, and it seemed a good thing at the time, but the world would have been better off, had his father been more careful, and Adolf were never born”. We fail to consider, by accepting such a postulate, what we could not know. Precisely, what we could not know is that had not Adolf Hitler become Fuehrer of Germany, someone else would have. That “someone else” may not have exterminated six million Jews in his “Final Solution”; instead, he may have concentrated that energy and those resources instead, to the development of the Atomic bomb.[22] This, we could never know, and in that sense, one could consider Adolf Hitler the lesser of the possible evils that could have arisen. A “lesser evil” can be considered “good” – in that a billion people would (or could have) perish in such a case. We will never know; we can only speculate based on available data.

            In the case of evil; Adolf Hitler in particular, the effects of what he set in motion with words, are felt by the survivors, their progeny, and by the world-at-large to this very day. We could have had saints or demons among the slaughtered, and this, also, we will never know.

            The point of all of this, is that even intentions for good or for evil can be considered the seeds from which an abundant harvest will inevitably arise. Most often, we reap what we sow, and it is only the exception – the apparency of the instant moment that has us confused about how the laws work that gives rise to such statements as “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It is a faulty and fatal analogy, for it implies that our intentions might as well be evil, or have some ulterior[23] or nefarious[24] motive for all the good it would do.

            Such a philosophy leads many down the slippery slope of evil, or at least selfish, self-serving intentions. A spiritual harvest manifests itself in the physical universe at a later point in time, or if not during the person’s lifetime, then they will be rewarded on judgment day.[25]

            A variation of “The Law of The Harvest” (Law #2) is known in the Eastern religions as “karma” – it is “spiritual harvest”, or something with a future benefit or consequence – but it is based on actions that were done in a past life that none can recall. The concept of karma, in its entirety, however, is a bold-faced lie right out of the pit of hell. It is extremely dangerous to confuse the Biblical concept of “reaping and sowing”[26] with the concept of karma. My essay on this topic, explains what karma is, in detail. [27] In Biblical “reaping and sowing”, there are no specific rewards promised – only that the person who keeps the commandments will be rewarded.[28] One does not get to choose his or her reward, but accepts that the reward is beyond imagining:

            “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him”.[29]

            Christians accept that their reward will be appropriate, and accept it on faith. The Bible says:

            “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”.[30]

            And once one reaches a certain level of spiritual awareness, faith itself is not so much a leap in the dark, as it is resting on the sufficiency of the evidence. The New Testament in the Book of Romans tells of those among us who are perpetually in denial of the empirically evident:

            “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”.[31]

            Hardly anyone takes all the evidence into account. There is a balance in the universe. The balance must be maintained. The physical universe is a mirror-image of the spiritual realms. If one isn’t sure that he can believe all of this, it is prudent to err on the side of caution, and keep one’s actions and his intents free of ulterior and nefarious motives. The laws of the universe and the will of God will do the rest.

            It is, we learn by experience, that one really cannot violate the laws of the spirit with any more impunity than the violation of the laws of nature. If one cheats on his wife, he reaps the harvest immediately within himself, as he, as a consequence, must withhold the offense from her, and in doing so, loses the intimacy he once enjoyed. A man jumps out the window of a tall building. The ride down – like the secret affair – is new and exhilarating in the instant moment. However, there are inevitable consequences that are inextricably attached to those actions.

            Make no mistake; more people than one might imagine, become the victims of another’s schemes and lies – if you’ve ever read Shakespeare's “Othello”, or seen the play, you will know what I mean. However, the sower of lies, the initiator of harm, always pays a price – even though it may not be apparent to outside observers. When we witness how the evildoers – the liars, thieves, fornicators, and warmongers – seem to prosper in this world, we can take solace that the spiritual laws will eventually catch up to them. A closer observation or analysis cannot be suggested here in all good conscience, as I cannot ask you to experiment with these dangerous forces. However, I know that what I am telling you here is empirical fact. It is of course, entirely up to you to determine if this applies to you; I assure you that it does, and caution you not to call Satan’s bluff, because he will lead you down the beautiful garden path that leads to destruction.

            Once we know how the spiritual laws work, and are secure in the knowledge that what we are observing is true, then the question remains: If we never jump out of an 87-story window because we know the law of gravity will squash us on the pavement with an acceleration rate of (32ft./Second)², then why do we constantly seek to commit spiritual suicide? Only we as individuals can answer that question, because the answer goes to the heart of what we really believe to be true. We express “belief” and then we act contrary to what we profess to be true. Go figure! Only one conclusion can be drawn here, and that is either we don’t really hold our spiritual beliefs to be as immutable as the axioms of a physical science, or most of us a spiritual Kamikaze[32] pilots waiting for that last shot of sake’[33] and a mission to go on – one or the other must be true.

            As for Spiritual Law #4, we know that all effects, no matter how small, create unforeseen ripples through all time from that point in time forward. It is possible that good things done today, can cause bad things to happen 100 years from now, and vice versa, but we must remember that with our free will, we can only control what we can reasonably foresee, and the rest is in the hands of God, who knows the effect before the cause:

            “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure”.[34]

            In that light, just being alive is an awesome responsibility, and “No matter where you go”, as one of Murphy’s Laws[35] states, “there you are”. We will always be and always do what God wills, and we are free to choose, but the extent of our choice, and how much of it is an illusion or apparency, is a matter of one’s own opinion, and the topic of endless debate.

            Everything we do or do not do, every word spoken, every word withheld, affects the universe in some way. To that end, I will leave you to read my essay “Butterflies Farting in Kenya”, and after you are finished laughing (hopefully) at its tongue-in-cheek humor, please stop and think about how profound it really is, and how important you are in the scheme of things, where you are right now.

See:

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