Page 47 - 102717-James Allen-Byways to Blessedness-flipbookversion_Neat

BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS 43

The selfish man is the ignorant man; he chooses his own way, but it is a way which leads to
suffering, and through suffering to knowledge and bliss. The good man is the wise man; he
likewise chooses his own way, but he chooses it in the full light of knowledge, having passed
through the stages of ignorance and suffering, and arrived at knowledge and bliss.
A man begins to understand what “seeing no evil” is when, putting away all personal desires in
his judgments of others, he considers them from their own standpoint, and judges their actions
not from his own standard but from theirs. It is because men setup arbitrary standards of right and
wrong, and are anxious that all should conform to their particular standard, that they see evil in
each other. A man is only rightly judged when he is judged not from my standard or yours but
from his own, and to deal with him thus is not judgment it is Love. It is only when we look through
the eyes of Impersonal Love that we become enlightened, and see others as they really are; and a

man is approaching that Love when he can say in his heart: “Who am I that I should judge another?
Am I so pure and sinless that I arraign men and pass the judgment of evil upon them? Rather let
me humble myself, and correct mine own errors, before assuming the position of supreme judge of
those of other men.”
It was said by one of old to those who were about to stone, as evil, a woman taken in the act of
committing one of the darkest sins: “He that is without sin let him cast the first stone”; and though
he who said it was without sin yet he took up no stone, nor passed any bitter judgment, but said,
with infinite gentleness and compassion: “Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more.”
In the pure heart there is no room left where personal judgements and hatreds can find
lodgement, for it is filled to overflowing with tenderness and love; it sees no evil; and only as men
succeed in seeing no evil in others will they become free from sin and sorrow and suffering.
No man sees evil in himself or his own acts except the man who is becoming enlightened, and
then he abandons those acts which he has come to see are wrong. Every man justifies himself in
what he does, and, however evil others may regard his conduct, he himself thinks it to be good and
necessary; If he did not he would not, could not do it. The angry man always justifies his anger; the
covetous man his greed; the impure man his unchastity; the liar considers that his lying is
altogether necessary; the slanderer believes that, in vilifying the characters of those whom he
dislikes, and warning other people against their “evil” natures, he is doing well; the thief is
convinced that stealing is the shortest and best way to plenty, prosperity, and happiness; and even
the murderer thinks that there is a ground of justification for his deed.
Every man’s deeds are in accordance with the measure of his own light or darkness, and no
man can live higher than he is or act beyond the limits of his knowledge. Nevertheless, he can
improve himself, and thereby gradually increase his light and extend the range of his knowledge.
The angry man indulgence in raillery and abuse because his knowledge does not extend to
forbearance and patience. Not having practised gentleness, he does not understand it, and cannot
choose it; nor can he know, by its comparison with the light of gentleness, the darkness of anger. It
is the same with the liar, the slanderer, and the thief; he lives in this dark condition of mind and
action because he is limited to it by his immature knowledge and experience, because never
having lived in the higher conditions, he has no knowledge of them, and it is, to him, as if they
were non-existent: “The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendenth it not.