Continuing his theme of the solution to the problem of the day, Hazrat Inayat Khan now considers the concepts of right and wrong, and the associated questions of courts and punishment. The previous post in the series is here.

Man very often overlooks that there may be some evil hidden under what he calls good. Sometimes an action is a cause and sometimes an action is an effect. Often an action which is an effect and which appears bad may have at the back of it a cause which, if it were known, one would feel it to be good. If one only saw clearly into every action, thought and word, one would see a thousand petals around it and within it, which are perhaps quite different from what it appears outside.

Very often the most innocent people in this world are accused of some fault, and often the most wicked, by their outward appearance make all they do apparently good. Therefore it is not in the power of every man to judge another. The ordinary man cannot judge, although he is the man who is ready to judge, and the one who arrives at the state of understanding life, so that he can judge, or has the right to judge, then he refrains from judging.

At this present moment in the world, lawyers are ever on the increase; the number of lawyers is ever increasing and is never sufficient for the needs of humanity. The light is needed to tell what is in man’s heart, how a person is speaking, while a lawyer keeps on making right of wrong and wrong of right, and the one who is concerned is speechless because he knows not the man-made law. Man is entirely in the hands of the law, if the law is favourable or unfavourable, if the lawyer has understood the case or has not understood the case. The lawyer is not a psychologist; he does not know the inside of the heart. About the case, what he knows is the outer signs, which is not worth anything when a person feels the inner truth of a true case. Mostly in each case the inside is contrary to its outside appearance, and the case is judged in the court from its outside appearance. In that way it has become a profession.

People with wealth are mostly the victims of lawyers. The court is the place were a great deal of their wealth is due. If a little thing is shown to the lawyer he can make it a mountain out of a molehill. If it is a thing which common sense can judge in one moment’s time, it must take a year; if it is the case of a rich person, it must take much longer. Many witnesses can be hired, and very often, at last he wins who has some influence, who has some strength to fight, who has the means; and often the means become his enemy and the case is prolonged because he is rich. The consequence is that there are more and more prisons, more people accused of crimes, who have that impression upon their souls, upon their minds.

The interest that the newspapers take in publishing a little fault to the whole world, with every sort of exaggeration and ridicule, is most pitiful – to think that at this time of human evolution such a tendency should exist in humankind. At every court the reporter is waiting to get some sensational news, to bring out before humanity the ridicule and laughter, having no regard for the respect due to the individual, and by that, proving lack of respect for humanity. And by this strictness of the law and by the ever-increasing judicial activities, do you think the world is any better? It is worse, for that sense of chivalry, that sense of honour which is in man with clearness of conscience, which guides man’s life – it all becomes blunted, when he finds himself in the crowd where there is no sense of the dignity of the human being.

To be continued…