Justice

Do nothing evil, neither in the presence of others, nor privately; But above all things respect yourself. In the next place, observe justice in your actions and in your words. And do not accustom yourself to behave yourself in any thing without rule, and without reason.

Granting that you and I argue. If you beat me, and not I you, are you necessarily right and I wrong? Or if I beat you and not you me, am I necessarily right and you wrong? Or are we both partly right and partly wrong? Or are we both wholly right or wholly wrong? You and I cannot know this, and consequently the world will be in ignorance of the truth.

Never value as an advantage to yourself what will force you one day to break your word, to abandon self respect, to hate, suspect, execrate another, to act a part, to covet anything that calls for walls or coverings to conceal it. A man who puts first his own mind and divinity, and the holy rites of its excellence, makes no scene, utters no groans, will need neither the refuge of solitude nor the crowded streets.

Always make a figure or outline of the imagined object as it occurs, in order to see distinctly what it is in its essence, naked, as a whole and parts; and say to yourself its individual name and the names of the things of which it was compounded and into which it will be broken up. What is this which now creates an image in me, what is its composition? How long will it naturally continue, what virtue is of use to meet it; for example, gentleness, fortitude, truth, good faith, simplicity, self-reliance, and the rest?

If you complete the present work, following the rule of right, earnestly, with all your might, with kindness, and admit no side issue, but preserve your own divinity pure and erect, as if you have this moment to restore it; if you make this secure, expecting nothing and avoiding nothing, but content with present action in accord with Nature and with heroic truth in what you mean and say, you will live the blessed life. Now there is no one who is able to prevent this.

You shall likewise know that according to Law, the nature of this universe is in all things alike, So that you shall not hope what you ought not to hope; and nothing in this world shall be hidden from you. You will likewise know, that men draw upon themselves their own misfortunes voluntarily, and of their own free choice.

Here is a man whose disposition is naturally of a low order. To let him take his own unprincipled way is to endanger the State. To try to restrain him is to endanger one's personal safety. He has just wit enough to see faults in others, but not to see his own. I am consequently at a loss what to do.

But you should abstain from the meats, which we have forbidden in the purifications and in the deliverance of the soul; Make a just distinction of them, and examine all things well. Leave yourself always to be guided and directed by the understanding that comes from above, and that ought to hold the reins. And when, after having deprived yourself of your mortal body, you arrived at the most pure Aither, you shall be a God, immortal, incorruptible, and Death shall have no more dominion over you.

Real saints know that he who does not master his appetites does not deserve the name of a man, and that the true Moslem is one who will cheerfully acknowledge the limits imposed by the Law.

If, however, we decide that only what our will controls is good or evil, then no ground is left either to arraign God or to adopt the position of an enemy to man.

Wipe away the impress of imagination. Stay the impulse which is drawing you. Define the time which is present. Recognize what is happening to yourself or another. Divide and separate the event into its causal and material aspects. Dwell in thought upon your last hour. Leave the wrong done by another where the wrong arose.

The Lord Ali once, in arguing with an unbeliever, said, "If you are right, then neither of us will be any the worse in the future; but if we are right, then we shall escape, and you will suffer."

They kill you, cut you in pieces, pursue you with curses. What has this to do with your understanding abiding pure, sane, temperate, and just? As if a man should stand by a sweet and crystal spring of water and curse it, but it never ceases bubbling up in water fresh to drink, and if he throw in mud or dung, it will quickly break it up and wash it away and will in no way be discoloured. How then shall you possess an everflowing fountain, not a mere cistern? If you guard yourself every hour unto freedom, contentedly, too, simply and reverently.

He who runs after pleasures as goods and away from pains as evils commits sin; for being such a man he must necessarily often blame Universal Nature for distributing to bad and good contrary to their desert, because the bad are often employed in pleasures and acquire what may produce these, while the good are involved in pain and in what may produce this.

Whosoever does wrong, wrongs himself; whosoever does injustice, does it to himself, making himself evil.

Call yourselves to account before ye be called to account.

Calm, in respect of what comes to pass from a cause outside you; justice, in acts done in accord with a cause from yourself: that is to say, impulse and act terminating simply in neighbourly conduct, because for you this is according to Nature.

The prayers of children profit their parents when the latter are dead, and children who die before their parents intercede for them on the Day of Judgment.

The Pauline anti-thesis of law and faith has falsely stamped Judaism as a religion of unrelieved legalism; and mysticism is the irreconcileable enemy of legalism.

He who runs away from his master is a fugitive slave. But law is a master and therefore the transgressor of law is a fugitive slave. In the same way, also, he who gives way to sorrow or anger or fear, wishes that something had not been or were not now, or should not be heareafter, of what is appointed by that which ordains all things; and that is law, laying down for every man what falls to his lot. He, therefore, who yields to fear or pain or anger is a fugitive slave.

Remember that nothing harms the natural citizen which does not harm the city and nothing harms the city which does not harm the law. Now none of what are called strokes of bad luck harms the law: wherefore, not harming the law, it harms neither city nor citizen.

It is in your power to secure at once all the objects which you dream of reaching by a roundabout path, if you will be fair to yourself: that is, if you will leave all the past behind, commit the future to Providence, and direct the present, and that alone, to Holiness and Justice. Holiness, to love your dispensation for Nature brought it to you and you to it; Justice, freely and without circumlocution both to speak the truth and to do the things that are according to law and according to worth. And be not hampered by another's evil, his judgement, or his words, much less by the sensation of the flesh that has formed itself about you- let the part affected look to itself.

First, in what you do that your act be not without purpose and not otherwise than Right itself would have done, and that outward circumstances depend either on chance or Providence; but neither is chance to be blamed, nor Providence arraigned.

Cast out the judgement; you are saved. Who then hinders your casting it out?

Whenever you feel something hard to bear, you have forgotten (a) that all comes to pass according to the Nature of the Whole, (b) that the wrong is not your own but another's, further (c) that all that is coming to pass always did, always will, and does now everywhere thus come to pass, (d) the great kinship of man with all mankind, for the bond of kind is not blood nor the seed of life, but mind. You have forgotten, moreover, (e) that every individual's mind is of God and has flowed from that other world, (f) that nothing is a man's own, but even his child, his body, and his vital spirit itself have come from that other world, (g) that all is judgement, (h) that every man lives only the present life and this is what he is losing.

How cheap is all that man strains to get, and how much wiser it were, with the material granted to you, to present yourself just, temperate, obedient to the gods in all simplicity; for pride smouldering under a cover of humility is the most grievous pride of all.

He who repays good deed with good deed is praised; what shall be said of the Son of Enlightenment, who does kindness unsought?

The Principle of Cause and Effect: Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.

The Hermetic Teachings are that Man may use Law to overcome laws, and that the higher will always prevail against the lower, until at last he has reached the stage in which he seeks refuge in the LAW itself, and laughs the phenomenal laws to scorn.

The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals - a vain and foolish thing. Knowledge, like wealth, is intended for Use. The Law of Use is Universal, and he who violates it suffers by reason of his conflict with natural forces.

Thy speech shall not be false or empty, but concerned with action.

Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not corrupt youth; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not use soothsaying; thou shalt not practise sorcery; thou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou slay it when born; thou shalt not covet the goods of thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not commit perjury; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not speak evil; thou shalt not bear malice; thou shalt not be double-minded or double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is the snare of death.

Blessed is he who giveth according to the commandment, for he is free from guilt; but woe unto him that receiveth.

Now the path of life is this — first, thou shalt love the God who made thee, thy neighbour as thyself, and all things that thou wouldest not should be done unto thee, do not thou unto another.

Give to every one that asketh of thee, and ask not again, for the Father wishes that from his own gifts there should be given to all.

Thy soul shall not be joined unto the lofty, but thou shalt walk with the just and humble.

Thou shalt not desire schism, but shalt set at peace them that contend; thou shalt judge righteously; thou shalt not accept the person of any one to convict him of transgression.

Thou shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but shalt share with thy brother in all things, and shalt not say that things are thine own; for if ye are partners in what is immortal, how much more in what is mortal?

Thou shalt hate all hypocrisy and everything that is not pleasing to God; thou shalt not abandon the commandments of the Lord, but shalt guard that which thou hast received, neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom.

Let the apostle when departing take nothing but bread until he arrive at his resting-place; but if he ask for money, he is a false prophet. He will remain one day, and if it be necessary, a second; but if he remain three days, he is a false prophet.

But if he wish to settle with you, being a craftsman, let him work, and so eat; but if he know not any craft, provide ye according to your own discretion, that a Christian may not live idle among you.

Thou shalt, therefore, take the first-fruits of every produce of the wine-press and threshing-floor, of oxen and sheep, and shalt give it to the prophets, for they are your chief priests; but if ye have not a prophet, give it unto the poor.

But let not any one who hath a quarrel with his companion join with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be polluted.

The world of matter and of spirit is the scene of the immanent manifestation of Divine Wisdom, Divine Power, Divine Love, Divine Justice.

If I fulfil not my vow by deeds, I shall be false to all beings, and what a fate will be mine.

From the first of the quotations just given, it follows that 'Jew' is a term of the widest scope. From the second one infers that the Jew fills no higher a place in the Divine favour than do the good and worthy of all men and races.

The thief Heedlessness, waiting to escape the eye of remembrance, robs men of the righteousness they have gathered, and they come to an evil lot.

In all probability it originated with the Rabbis of the Talmud in the first three centuries of the Christian era. Thus, a passage in T.B. Ḥaggigah, speaks of the "Ten agencies through which God created the world, wisdom, insight, cognition, strength, power, inexorableness, justice, right, love, mercy."

They who do me hurt are moved thereto by my works, and thence they fall into hell; surely it is I that undo them.

Not only wilt thou not grieve for thine own sins, but thou darest to be jealous of the righteous.

And likewise thou mayst not dishonour him who wrongs thee because he is weak; for the warders of hell and the Merciful Ones are his strength.

How cant thou forsake the noble delight in the Law, which brings an endless course of comforts, and find pleasure in wantonness, mirth, and other like sources of sorrow?

The Divine Thought is the source whence emanate two opposing principles, one active or masculine, the other passive or feminine. The former is Mercy (Ḥesed), the latter is Justice (Dīn). From the union of these two there results Beauty (Tifěrěth).