ACTIONS TOWARDS OTHERS
(Vernon Howard, Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge)

You can sweep aside all arguments and questions concerning your actions towards others with one simple rule.  Any action that is truly right for you is truly right for another.  And what is truly wrong for you is also harmful to your neighbour.   You are not separate from your neighbour except on the physical level.  By this rule it is not only unhelpful to practice man-made moralities towards others but downright damaging, for they increase the illusion that the artificial is the real.  Put it another way.  Any action of yours that fails to develop your own inner strength is useless to others.  If a lighthouse is to help passing ships, its own light must radiate into the fog.
When hearing this, a learner asked, ‘What do you mean by man-made moralities?’
‘Anything pretending to be good while having cunning self-interest behind it.  Examples are all around you.’

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Inner Life Exercise

Beginning immediately, and continuing as long as possible, become aware of ‘cunning self-interest’ in my own actions and words.  This self-knowledge will become a powerful lighthouse for detecting not only the ‘deceiver’ within, but deception as expressed by others.

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