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Lesson IX: More About Dharma.415
to put yourself in their place you are able only to think of yourself (with
all your past experiences and present attainments) clothed in the flesh and
garments of the other. It is not the same at all—to be exactly like them you
would have to cast aside all your past experiences and present attainments,
and take the experience and attainment of the other instead. And, in that
case, would you not be the other instead of yourself, and could you then
(being that other) act differently from him?
The student who has followed us in our consideration of the schools of
ethics—the three pillars of Dharma—very naturally asks us what crowns the
structure—what ideal of conduct Dharma holds out to those who are ready
to perceive it. When one has mounted into the temple supported by the
three pillars, what does he find there? Let us see what answer Dharma gives
to these questions.
The main point to remember in the consideration of “Right Action” as
seen from the point of view of Dharma, is that the soul of Man is in a state
of evolution or unfoldment. It is moving, stage by stage, from the lowest
to the highest—from the idea of separation to the knowledge of Oneness.
This unfoldment is the aim of life—the Divine plan. This being the case, can
you not see that anything in the line of that unfoldment that aids it and
tends to forward the work is “Good” or “Right?” And then, equally true must
be the statement that anything that retards that unfoldment or tends to
delay or frustrate it must be “Bad” or “Wrong,” when measured by the same
standard. It is true that you may say “Not-Good,” or “Not-Right,” instead of
“Bad” and “Wrong,” or you may say “Less-Good,” or “Less-Right,” if you prefer
the terms—but the meaning is the same, no matter what words are used.
The “Right” or “Good” falls in with the plan of unfoldment, while the “Wrong”
or “Bad” tends to retard it, or to frustrate its work. It is “right” for the tiger
to be blood-thirsty and revengeful, for that is not contrary to his stage of
development, but for a developed man to revert to that stage, or stages
corresponding to it is “Wrong,” because it is a going back, or retrogression.
For an advanced soul to harbor feelings of hate, revenge, jealousy and the