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CHAPTER 13:

Understanding the Simple Laws of Life

“Watch narrowly
The demonstration of a truth, its birth,
And you trace back the effluence to its spring
And source within us.”
— Browning.

“More is the treasure of law than gems;
Sweeter than comb its sweetness. Its delights,
Delightful past compare.”
— The Light of Asia.

WALKING those byways which I have so far pointed out, resting in their beauty and drinking in
their blessedness, the pilgrim along life’s broad highway will in due time come to one wherein his
last burden will fall from him, where all his weariness will pass away, where he will drink of light-
hearted liberty, and rest in perpetual peace. And this most blessed of spiritual byways, the richest
source of strength and comfort, I call The Right Understanding of the Simple Laws of Life. He
who comes to it leaves behind him all lack and longing, all doubt and perplexity, all sorrow and
uncertainty. He lives in the fulness of satisfaction, in light and knowledge, in gladness and surety.
He who comprehends the utter simplicity of life, who obeys its laws and does not step aside into
the dark paths and complex mazes of selfish desire, stands where no harm can reach him, where
no enemy can lay him low — and he doubts, desires, and sorrows no more. Doubt ends where
reality begins; painful desire ceases where the fulness of joy is perpetual and complete; and when

the Unfailing and Eternal Good is realised what room is there for sorrow?
Human life when rightly lived is simple with a beautiful simplicity, but it is not rightly lived
while it is bound to a complexity of lusts, desires, and wants- these are not the real life but the
burning fever and painful disease which originate in an unenlightened condition of mind. The
curtailing of one’s desires is the beginning of wisdom; their entire mastery its consummation. This
is so because life is bounded by law, and being inseparable from law, life has no need that is not
already supplied. Now lust, or desire, is not need, but a rebellious superfluity, and as such it leads
to deprivation and misery. The prodigal son, while in his father’s house, not only had all that he
required, but was surrounded by a superabundance. Desire was not necessary, because all things
were at hand; but when desire entered his heart he “went into a far country,” and “began to be in
want,” and it was only when he became reduced to the utmost extremity of starvation that he
turned with longing towards his father’s home. This parable is symbolical of the evolution of the
individual and the race. Man has come into such a complexity of cravings that he lives in continual
discontent, dissatisfaction, want, and pain; and his only cure lies in a return to the Father’s Home
— that is, to actual living or being as distinguished from desiring. But a man does not do this