The Eighth Law: The Law of Unconditional Love
Congratulations on your advancement to the rank of 7/8 in the Octagon Society. You’ve now reached the final part of this phase of your spiritual-alchemical journey. You now have access to all Eight Laws: the Law of Acceptance, the Law of Happiness, the Law of Joy, the Law of Peace, the Law of Forgiveness, the Law of Strength, the Law of Teaching, and the Law of Unconditional Love.
Unconditional love is exactly what it sounds like: love without conditions. So often we hedge about our love with conditions, or even convince ourselves that we can only love because of this or that thing that someone else thinks, says, or does. In reality, love is a choice. We choose to love, or not to love. We choose to place conditions on our love, or not to do so. We choose to fill our lives and the world around us with love—or we choose not to. It’s up to us. This is the Law of Unconditional Love: Love is the ultimate expression of our freedom as spiritual beings. When we choose to love unconditionally, rather than making our love depend on condition and circumstances, we become free of all the burdens of our past, and we become free to embrace whatever future we choose.
Learning to love unconditionally is another very difficult task in the work of spiritual alchemy, though it is easier than it could be, because of the previous steps we’ve taken on our spiritual-alchemical journey. If you have already learned to accept the people in your life, and then learned to forgive the people in your life, taking the next step to love unconditionally the people in your life becomes easier. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy!
It is important not to misunderstand unconditional love. To love someone unconditionally does not mean to ignore their less lovable characteristics, much less to pretend that these don’t exist. It does not mean to forget what that person might have done in the past. It does not mean that you have to give someone who harmed you free rein to harm you again. It means that neither that person nor anyone else has the power to make you stop loving. It means that love is a free act on your part, not something that is controlled or conditioned by people or things outside you.
You may find, despite the work you’ve already done on the path of spiritual alchemy, that you are not yet able to direct unconditional love toward everyone and everything in your life. If you haven’t yet been able to accept or forgive someone or something, it’s a safe bet that you won’t yet be able to love them unconditionally either. If there are people, places, or things you can’t yet love unconditionally, accept that fact, forgive yourself for it, and love yourself unconditionally. As you become more aware of the power of unconditional love to transform yourself and everything around you, you will find that it’s easier to direct unconditional love even to those people, places, and things you thought you couldn’t possibly love.
Difficult as this step may be, it is worth taking. The Law of Unconditional Love is the Third Gateway to Adepthood, the third doorway we need to enter to follow our spiritual path and become the person we want to be. The Third Gateway is the Third Great Secret. The secret is that learning to direct unconditional love toward all things and all beings, including ourselves, is an essential part of our spiritual path. The secret is that learning to love ourselves and all others unconditionally is a requirement for Transformation. The secret is that loving ourselves and all others unconditionally is a requirement for creating the Philosopher’s Stone. Unconditional love is the Third Great Secret.
Going through the Third Gateway takes us further down the spiritual path that leads to Illumination, Enlightenment, and Rebirth as a new person. The Key to the Third Gateway is called the Golden Key and the Third Gateway is the Golden Gate of the Ancients. The Golden Key is unconditional love for yourself and all others. Use this key and you open the gate. Use this Key and you can pass through the Third Gateway.
The Divine loves all things in the universe unconditionally. One essential goal of spiritual alchemy, and of the broader spiritual path in which it has a central role, is to become like the Divine, to the extent of being able to love everyone and everything unconditionally. We proceed toward the summit of our spiritual path to the extent we’re able to accomplish this goal. We progress along this path in eight separate and distinct steps:
• Love your father unconditionally
• Love your mother unconditionally
• Love your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins unconditionally
• Love your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors unconditionally
• Love your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees unconditionally
• Love your enemies and antagonists unconditionally
• Love all other persons, places, and things unconditionally
• Love yourself unconditionally
1. Your first task is to love your father unconditionally. Review the work you have done with your memories and experiences of your father in passing through the previous ranks of the Octagon Society, reading what you wrote in the first task of each step you’ve taken. You have accepted your father; you have reviewed the feelings of sadness, fear, and anger you feel toward him, or because of him; you have forgiven him; you have started to make positive changes in your life; and you have reviewed all the good things you learned from him, or because of him. With all this in mind, practice the Breath of Unconditional Love until you feel that you can love him unconditionally. You may also find it useful to do the Letter of Love exercise. Both of these are explained at the end of this section.
2. Your second task is to love your mother unconditionally. Follow the same strategy for your mother as you did for your father. Continue in this manner until you feel you love your mother unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your second task.
3. Your third task is to love your children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins unconditionally. Follow the same strategy as you did for the other steps in this sequence. Continue in this manner until you feel you love them unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your third task.
4. Your fourth task is to love your aunts, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, great aunts, and all your ancestors unconditionally. Follow the same strategy as you did for your father. Continue in this manner until you feel you love them unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your fourth task.
5. Your fifth task is to love your spouse, lovers, friends, fellow students and fellow employees unconditionally. Follow the same strategy as you did for the other steps in this sequence. Continue in this manner until you feel you love them unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your fifth task.
6. Your sixth task is to love your enemies and antagonists unconditionally. Many people find this to be a very difficult project! It can be the ultimate test of your own freedom: to direct unconditional love at those who hate you. Follow the same strategy as you did for the other steps in this sequence. Continue in this manner until you feel you love them unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your sixth task.
7. Your seventh task is to love all other persons, places, and things unconditionally. Follow the same strategy as you did for the other steps in this sequence. Continue in this manner until you feel you love them unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your seventh task.
8. Your eighth task is to love yourself unconditionally. Many people find this just as difficult a project as loving their enemies and antagonists! Follow the same strategy as you did for the other steps in this sequence. Continue in this manner until you feel you love yourself unconditionally, to the extent you can at this time. This completes your eighth and final task.
When you’ve completed these tasks to your satisfaction for all eight of these steps, you have completed all eight of the lessons of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy’s first section, and have fulfilled the requirements for the rank of 8/8, the highest rank in the Octagon Society and the threshold of the work to come.
If you’ve gone through all eight ranks from 1/8 to 8/8 in eight weeks or less, you may find it helpful to go back over the work and make sure that you’ve really given it your honest effort. If sixteen weeks have gone by and you haven’t yet reached the work of the 8/8, you may find it helpful to look at how you’re doing the work in order to make sure that you’re not unduly delaying yourself. Progress, not perfection, is the goal of the work! Under most circumstances, your first passage through the eight levels of the Octagon Society, from 1/8 through 8/8, should take between eight and sixteen weeks, not counting the three preliminary lessons.
The Letter of Love
As you proceed through this stage of the work, you may find it helpful to use a simple technique that was developed many years ago by members of our order. This is the technique of writing out your feelings toward some person, as though you were writing that person a letter. This is called the Letter of Love. Write it in the same notebook you use for the rest of your Octagon Society lessons. You’re not going to mail it, and nobody else will ever see it, so you can be completely honest.
In your Letter of Love, explain to the person what they did that made it difficult for you to accept them, and tell them that you accept them as they are despite these things. Explain what it was you had to forgive, and tell them that you forgive them for these things. Explain why it was difficult for you to love them unconditionally, and tell them that you love them unconditionally. Then sign the letter.
Write a Letter of Love to as many people as seems appropriate. Don’t forget to consider writing a Letter of Love to yourself! Take your time and let yourself go through the emotional response that writing the letter will likely stir up. Accept, forgive, and love yourself as you do this.
You may also find the following breathing exercise useful in the work of this stage.
Breath of Unconditional Love
The Breath of Love is the third and final breathing meditation technique we recommend to our students. You should already be familiar with both the Breath of Acceptance and the Breath of Forgiveness. If not, now’s a good time to review those techniques.
Stage Five of the Final Phase is to love ourselves. Having forgiven yourself and all others, you’re now in the position to love all people, places, things and events in the Creation. Until you’ve forgiven yourself and all others, your capacity to unconditionally love anyone or anything is limited. This limitation restricts your ability to heal yourself and others. But before you can love any other person, place or thing unconditionally, you must first learn to love yourself.
Send the message to your own image during the pause in your breathing that you love your body just the way it is, you love your mind just the way it is, you love your heart, soul and spirit just the way they are. You accept your imperfections knowing these are the tools to help you learn. You accept your limitations knowing they confine the space of your learning, the space in which you need to do whatever it is you need to do.
Love yourself for who and what you are – a child of Deity with a purpose you are now beginning to understand and one you’re willing to perform. Love yourself so you can love others. Love yourself so you can heal yourself and others. Love yourself because you’re a Child of Deity who receives the unconditional love of the Divine. Love is a decision. Decide to love yourself.
Stage Six of The Final Phase is to love all other people, places and things. Once you accept and forgive yourself and others, and once you learn to love yourself, you’re in the proper place to decide to love all other people, places and things. Love is a decision. We decide what we’re going to love and what we’re going to avoid loving. Decide during your breathing meditation to love everyone and everything. Then love yourself, others and all other things.
Stage Seven of The Final Phase is to love the Divine, in whatever form we experience the Divine. This is the final stage of our spiritual meditation. We cannot honestly love the Creator until we love the creation. When we reach the point where we love the creation and everything in the creation, we reach the point where we’re able to decide to love the Divine. Make that decision and transform yourself forever.
Imagine the Creator and all of creation standing before you during the pause in your breathing meditation. Consciously say: “I love you unconditionally. I love myself unconditionally. I love you and your creation unconditionally.”
We recommend you repeat the seven stages of the Breath of Acceptance – Breath of Forgiveness – Breath of Love techniques at regular intervals for the rest of your life. Each time you go through this process you deepen your capacity to love even more.