This is also one of the basic laws underlying the mechanism of existence of the material world. In essence it states that nothing comes from nowhere and nothing disappears into nowhere; everything only passes from one state to another. If something disappears in one place, that means something appears in another place. If something does not exist in one of its forms, it must exist in another form.
Since this law applies to the whole world, all the material-psychological processes happening in the world obey it. For example, in physics we know this law from school, where it was named exactly what we have termed it — The Law of Conservation of Energy. In chemistry it is known to us as The Law of Conservation of the Mass of Matter.
We know how this law manifests itself in physical and chemical processes, but how does it manifest itself in mental processes? Since a man’s psyche is more multi-faceted than physics or chemistry, in mental processes this law manifests itself on several planes at the same time. The most important plane can be formulated in the following phrase. Any laws of life and notions that a man does not use naturally function in his life unnaturally in the form of negative situations, because they cannot help functioning. On the level of feelings, this process works as follows. Any natural feelings (pleasures) in the soul of a
man that he does not use naturally take the form of unnatural feelings (sufferings). Deeper yet, on the level of power the process works like this. Any powers of a man that he does not control in his soul will take shape his life uncontrollably in the form of power of negative situations. This is the same process on different levels of its existence.
Man’s consciousness consists of many fields, each of which interrelates with a corresponding field of life. The laws lying in one or another field of consciousness are those according to which a corresponding field of life develops. Therefore, a man experiences various negative situations in his life, depending on which laws and notions he does not understand.
When a man fails to control his power in some field of life, then he becomes weak in that field. The more fields of his life he fails to control, the weaker he is. The weaker he becomes, the more problems he has. The stronger he becomes, the fewer problems he has in life. This applies to both individuals and peoples in general.
If we use the term evil for problems in our life, we can come up with the following formulation: “Evil in our life is our weakness” or “Our weakness is evil in our life.”
Let me give examples of how the Law of Preservation of Energy manifests itself. Example 1, “power of private property”
If the people do not use their power of private property in a state, that power will exist unnaturally in the state in the form of bureaucrats’ feeling for the state authority. This transformation of power from the natural functioning to the unnatural one happens the following way. When the legislature in a state does not recognize private property, the
people cannot use their natural feeling — that is, their feeling of private property — and cannot use the power existing in this feeling. Being unable to use their life power, the people do not possesses it, and hence they are weak and unprotected in this field. Unclaimed power exists in an uncontrolled form. Since it is uncontrolled, bureaucrats can freely take and use it, and they usually do so. When a bureaucrat absorbs the power of people, he begins to feel strong, and it seems to him that this is his own power. Thus the power of people is in a transformed, uncontrolled form in those who manage these people. These are party bosses, directors of state factories and plants and even simple service workers – waiters, salespeople, hairdressers, etc. They all will clearly feel their power over the people. If, besides this, the people are spiritually blind, they will as well think their managers are clever and advanced people with a strong life power.
Example 2, “crime in society”
To begin with, I will describe the general code of the law crime. Contemporary man is weak, but his natural weakness is not the root of his problems. When a man begins to be shy or afraid of his weakness, he begins to cheat; he begins to pretend to be strong so as to hide his weakness. Thus he lies to himself. This lie is the first step in the process of creating life problems. These artificial acts produce an uncontrollable gap in the man’s psyche between his natural level of strength and these acts. These gaps in people’s souls make up one large space, which is where crime lives. When this space does not exist, there is no place for crime. Thus one of the significant parts of the code of the law crime is the difference between what people really are and what they pretend to be. Criminals are cruel people. Why? Because they sense the lies in the people’s souls, in the society. They take vengeance upon the society for its dishonesty, and so restore harmony.
Where does crime get its strength? When people artificially act as strong ones, their acts disperse their life power. This dispersed power is uncontrolled. Criminals absorb this power, they live by it. The process of absorbing the power of the society externally takes the form of committing crimes.
The more natural the society, the less power it disperses and the weaker the crime is. Thus the overall amount of power in a society always stays unchanged.
With regard to the individuals, we can say the following. A man is a critical volume of power himself. When he cheats, these empty spaces become open, unprotected places in his soul, and other people (in this case, criminals) can freely enter these places. A criminal feels the weak places in another’s soul and penetrates them. Why are people afraid of criminals? Because they feel their unprotected places, feel their vulnerability before criminals.
How to get rid of crime? There are two ways.
a. The natural way. The society must begin to live naturally, using all the laws of life: that is, the society must live a life of full value, a happy life, live with pleasure. When the life of the society is of full value, it will not disperse power and will have no crime.
b. The second way is an external, artificial one. To keep power, one must apply to it the same amount of power in the opposite direction. In other words, one must create organs of law enforcement whose power will equal that of the criminals. To obtain the required amount of power, such law enforcement organs must be big; or if they are not big, then their approach to crime must be concentrated, powerful. Since this way is an artificial one,
it always pays the tribute of artificiality (see chapter 15 “Men’s internal and external ways of communicating with the surrounding world”). To society, this tribute to artificiality means that it will spend a significant part of its budget to pay law-enforcement organs instead of using it to better its life.
Example 3, “unity of people”
There is a law of life — that is, a pleasure of life — that can be described as natural, spiritual unity of people. When this law is not functioning in society in its natural form, then it must function in its unnatural form – in the form of unity of criminals: that is, organized crime, a Mafia. In the countries where people are spiritually far apart, the Mafia has a correspondingly greater unity.
Example 4.
When courts fail to solve society’s life questions or are biased in their approach to solving those questions, then people begin to solve these unsolved questions themselves, because they cannot be left unsolved. If a state – law and law enforcement – does not enable people to solve their problems, they will begin to solve them without the law enforcement organs,: that is, in a criminal way, by criminals.
Example 5.
Military people have a saying: “If the people do not want to feed their army, very soon they will feed somebody else’s army.”
Inasmuch as a society does not listen and live by what intellectually developed people say, so far will it have to listen to and live by what intellectually undeveloped people say. This will happen because the intellectually undeveloped people will gradually take over as politicians, professors in universities, owners of banks, factories and plants, and presidents of countries.
Transition from the natural functioning of life power into the unnatural one in the material world happens as a natural evolution of events.
Relation of the Law of Conservation of Energy to the main law of nature
When man fails to use his power in the form of pleasure, then it functions as suffering. The less he uses his power, the greater the power of his suffering, but his general amount of power stays unchanged. These two opposite sides of the same situation in formulation of the main law of nature sound like this: the more one aspect of the situation deviates to one side, the more the other aspect deviates to the opposite side.
Relationship of the Law of Conservation of Energy to the Law of Territory
When a man incorrectly understands a law of life, he is not on his psychical territory. Then other objects of nature occupy this territory: for example, other people. Correspondingly, they will use his power.
Similar analogies can be drawn for other laws of nature. These examples show us that the laws of nature are aspects of the same global law, one natural power.