Out of Balance, Out of Time
Reclaiming the Law of Balance in an Age of Disruption
The Law of Balance is the Universe’s operating system. It is the law by which everything from galaxies to the temperature of your morning cup of coffee seeks equilibrium. In The Law of Balance: Truth, Power, and the Hidden Third Force, we explored the Law of Balance, known to the ancient Egyptians as Ma’at and expressed by Gurdjieff as the Law of Three, the organising principle of the cosmos.
Ma’at is a central message in Pesedjet Ninefold Wisdom. A deceptively simple concept, balance sits at the heart of every system and every wisdom tradition, yet its importance has been largely forgotten in modern times. Reconnecting with balance as a guiding principle will, I believe, be a key lesson in the years ahead.
Temporarily pushing our mind-body system out of balance can be necessary, helping us rise to challenges or surmount unexpected circumstances, but equilibrium must ultimately be restored. When imbalance persists, our bodies become dis-eased and our minds dis-stressed, resulting in many health conditions that are endemic in today’s world. Instead of pushing the mind-body system further away from equilibrium, the wise course of action is to move from imbalance towards balance. All holistic healing is based on this logic.
Balance as the Heart of Governance
The foundational need for balance applies equally to society, whether in communities, businesses, or systems of governance. Ideally, such systems would seek steady-state stability because the opposite is chaos, injustice, violence, and disorder – exactly the problems we see today, as environmental, political, and economic systems destabilise worldwide.
A key translation of Ma’at is the word ‘justice’, which might at first feel out of place alongside terms like balance and harmony. When you hear the word ‘justice’, what comes to mind? Like most people, you may be thinking of crime and punishment, injury and retribution. This in itself reveals just how deeply our ideas of justice have been shaped by the imbalanced system we live in.
Dictionary definitions of justice include terms such as fairness, egalitarianism, impartiality, honour, integrity, ethics, trustworthiness, and incorruptibility. It is these virtues that were central to the Egyptian worldview, embodied in the principle of Ma’at, harmonic balance. In fact, the divine principle of Ma’at later evolved into the Greek goddess Themis who is still visible today in statues of Lady Justice that stand atop many law courts, including London’s Old Bailey.
Plato’s Republic offers a useful perspective to help us better understand the concept of justice symbolised by Ma’at. In his theory of justice Plato taught that a just individual and a just society mirror each other through harmony among their constituent parts with each part fulfilling its designated role in order to maintain internal balance. Within individuals, justice meant harmony among reason, spirit, and appetite. In society, it meant harmony among clearly defined archetypes:
Philosophers, driven by knowledge and intellect, whose virtue is wisdom.
Soldiers, guided by spirit and emotion, whose virtue is courage.
Traders and producers, guided by desire and practicality, whose virtue is temperance.
Plato envisioned governance by Philosopher-Kings in the form of individuals in whom intellect, courage, and a love of wisdom were fully integrated. When inner balance is achieved, the person — and by extension, the society — becomes a just and harmonious whole.
Contrast that with today, where governance is commonly driven by polarisation, short-term thinking, ego and personal gain, not integrity or wisdom. We live in an increasingly imbalanced corporate world, in which merchants and traders run the show with few, if any, checks and balances. Plato would hardly recognise our current situation as anything close to his ‘ideal state’ governed by justice.
Let’s also remember that Plato wrote about Egyptian philosophy which he studied in ancient Egypt1; his theory of justice as explained in the Republic was not new or original in essence. Personal and societal justice in the form of Ma’at had already been practised for thousands of years in ancient Egypt, and was also reflected in concepts like Dharma in Hinduism and Buddhism, and the Dao in Taoism. What Plato did was to articulate the Law of Balance clearly and rationally, in accessible language we can readily understand today.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise how far away from Ma’at our current systems have drifted, and how damaging the consequences have become. There is now an urgent imperative to restore balance, order, and genuine justice as guiding principles of philosophic leadership that is rooted in a concern for peace, harmony and true respect for people.
Placing the wisdom of balance and stability at the heart of personal conduct and collective leadership is now the most practical and urgently needed response to our mounting global challenges.
Ecological Wisdom: Sustainability as Sacred Law
French symbologist René Schwaller de Lubicz defines harmony as “the ‘method’ of Nature”2, while Gurdjieff speaks of our duty as human beings to “that Nature to which, strictly speaking, they owe their very existence.”3
The natural world is a masterclass in equilibrium, constantly recalibrating towards sustainable harmony. Ecosystems operate through delicate balances in the form of predator-prey relationships, seasonal cycles, ocean tides, and planetary orbits, always seeking dynamic stability. If any part in the system becomes imbalanced, Nature will rebalance the system through a process of self-regulation. Every ecosystem within the biosphere seeks balance, and the biosphere itself seeks balance.
Gurdjieff observed that “each complete whole, each cosmos, each organism, each plant, is an enneagram”.4 In other words, everything is an interconnected system seeking equilibrium. Needless to say, this inviolable law applies to us too. As we continue to destabilise global ecosystems, Nature will inevitably act to restore balance — with or without our cooperation.
The ancient Egyptians, like many other civilisations, understood that their existence was deeply embedded in nature, certainly not above it. Sustainability wasn’t a topic for debate; it was recognised as Nature's foundational operating system. No animal ever takes more than it needs. Indigenous peoples have long lived in ways that honoured the land, taking only what was needed and guided by a view of the Earth as a relative to be lived with in reciprocity. For hundreds of thousands of years, human beings trod lightly on the Earth and thrived in ways we might now struggle to comprehend.
Today, our culture is driven by an ideology of relentless expansion and endless growth, based on dangerous notions such as ‘conquering nature’: the very definition of hubris. Infinite growth on a finite planet is, quite obviously, a logical impossibility. (Spoiler alert: No amount of ‘tech’ will ever alter this fact.) We’ve already overshot planet Earth’s capacity to sustain life, now requiring 1.75 planets to maintain current levels of consumption5. Earth Overshoot Day, marking the day in the year when humanity exceeds Earth’s regenerative capacity, falls on the 20th May in 2025.6
Wiser humans before us understood that intergenerational security comes from living within a well-balanced system, with stability as their guiding principle. We, on the other hand, have lost sight of this simple truth, along with the deeper reality that Nature is always in charge. When balance is lost, Nature will certainly restore it — in her own timescale and on her own terms.
Our survival depends on recognising this reality, and choosing to align with Nature, rather than foolishly trying to conquer her.
A Modern Living Wisdom
Our modern obsession with endless growth in the name of ‘progress’ has led us away from the reality of life on Earth. True progress in the 21st century will be to understand once again our absolute reliance on Nature’s laws, and to let go of the wild fantasy that we can escape them. The Law of Balance, in the form of Ma’at, powerfully reminds us of a fundamental truth: we belong here, within Earth’s equilibrium.
Now more than ever, a proper understanding the wisdom of Ma’at is exactly what’s needed to restore balance to our polarised, imbalanced world. Ma’at is no simplistic or ‘primitive’ belief, it is in fact a timeless, living wisdom.
Were ancient societies perfect? No they certainly were not, and we should avoid seeing them through rose-tinted glasses. However, aspiring to live by Ma’at helped build ancient Egypt to be the longest-lasting civilisation we know about.
Ma’at teaches us that the cost of imbalance is incalculable; sustainability is much more than a lifestyle choice, it is a necessity. It’s time we faced what wiser civilisations once understood: living in harmony with Nature is not optional, it’s the only way to guarantee longterm survival.
Collectively we can and must do better. UN Secretary-General António Guterres urges us to take note when he says we are at “code red for humanity”7. Our future is in imminent danger.
Sources including Plutarch and Strabo record that Plato visited Egypt, a common destination for ancient Greeks seeking advanced education and philosophical study.
R. Schwaller de Lubicz, Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple
G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
G. I . Gurdjieff quoted by P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous
Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by the Global Footprint Network.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ statement on the 2021 IPCC Climate Report: https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm
I’m still waiting for influential people in the world to speak up and ACT against this ‘conquering nature’ and ‘progressive’ mindset that leads to imbalance Robert. I hope good people do something.
Love the article and its connection to Ma’at.