Page 48 - 102717-James Allen-Byways to Blessedness-flipbookversion_Neat

44 BYWAYS TO BLESSEDNESS

Nor can he understand even the conditions in which he is living, because, being dark, they are
necessarily devoid of all knowledge.
When a man driven by repeated sufferings to at last reflect upon his conduct, comes to see that
his anger or lying, or whatever ignorant condition he may have been living in, is productive only of
trouble and sorrow then he abandons it, and commences to search for, and practise, the opposite
and enlightened condition; and when he is firmly established in the better way, so that his
knowledge of both conditions is complete, then he realises in what great darkness he had formerly
lived. This knowledge of good and evil by experience constitutes enlightenment.
When a man begins to look, as it were, through the eyes of others, and to measure them by
their own standard and not by his, then he ceases from seeing of evil in others, for he knows that
every man’s perception and standard of good and evil is different; that there is no vice so low but

some men regard it as good; no virtue so high but some men regard it as evil; and what a man
regards as good that to him is good; what he regards as evil that to him is evil.
Nor will the purified man, who has ceased to see evil in others, have any desire to win men to
his own ways or opinions, but will rather help them in their own particular groove, knowing that
an enlarged experience only, and not merely change of opinion can lead to higher knowledge and
greater blessedness.
It will be found that men see evil in those who differ from them, good in those who agree with
them. The man who greatly loves himself and is enamoured of his opinions will love all those who
agree with him and will dislike all those who disagree with him. “If ye love them that love ye, what
reward have ye?.... Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you.” Egotism and vanity make
men blind. Men of opposing religious views hate and persecute each other; men of opposing
political views fight and condemn each other. The partisan measures all men by his own standard,
and sets up his judgements accordingly. So convinced is he that he is right and others wrong that
he at last persuades himself that to inflict cruelty on others is both good and necessary in order to
coerce them into his way of thinking and acting, and so bring them to the right — his right —
against their own reason and will.
Men hate, condemn, resist and inflict suffering upon each other, not because they are
intrinsically evil, not because they are deliberately “wicked” and are doing, in the full light of truth,
what they know to be wrong, but because they regard such conduct as necessary and right. All
men are intrinsically good, but some are wiser than others, are older in experience than others. I
recently heard, in substance, the following conversation between two men whom I will call D- and
E-. The third person referred to as X is a prominent politician:-

E. Every man reaps the result of his own thoughts and deeds, and suffers for his own wrong.

D. If that is so, and if no man can escape from the penalty of his evil deeds, what an inferno some of
our men in power must be preparing for themselves.

E. Whether a man is in power or not, so long as he lives in ignorance and sin, he will reap sorrow
and suffering.