WHEN I am annoyed by an ungovernable animal, I am reminded that the brutes would not oppose man if man understood and entered into his true relations with all things. The brutes are unconsciously aware of the general human opposition, which they see focalized in each human being. When I am in harmony with all things, men cannot and brutes will not oppose me. In underrating instinct, the brute is more true than is the man, to the unwritten Law.

The “idle word” condemned by Jesus is inactivity of Being. It is the cessation of the homogeneous resonance, the Logos or Word. The Word in its highest activity is pure spirit; in stagnation it is hell. To each man it is given in trust for all men; if he misinterprets it he is tortured. If he sequestrates it, he is condemned to eternal death that it may be free; for it is eternally free. Through misuse, he may learn its use. If he denies it, he is lost; for by it alone he lives.

It is better for a man to sin deliberately against the Law than to chafe under the mandates of conscience. The first is a renegade who chooses another King; the second is coward and slave who rebels but dares not disobey. The energy of direct sin may, by reaction, compel return, but the lethargy of fear bears no fruit.

If you wish to receive, give. If you wish to ascend, descend. If you wish to live, die. If you wish to understand these words, read them by the lamp of the spirit, and reject that of the understanding.

Apparent evil is a necessary result of manifestation or duality. The good alone is in Time inactive. Evil is the balance of good: the Equilibrating power reigns above and is alone eternal.

When the silent Eternal gives birth to the activity of Spirit in Space the worlds are evolved, and, seeking equilibrium, return again to the eternal silence. So with the soul of man. 

More saving grace may be found in the society of thieves than in that of fine persons who never reverberate to a true thought. In the first there is rebound; the latter is the negation of life.

Expiation is the kernel of sin. “Evil” containing its own punishment continually defeats itself, and sows the seed of “good” in its own regeneration.

He who would see Perfection must become It. How? By beginning the attempt. Its first step is the full realization of imperfection in himself.

William Q. Judge,
Path, February 1889