It use to be darkly humorous to note than in contemporary society, “He who has the gold rules.”
But today, in this country where egalitarianism is taking a beating from the super-oligarch behind the simple-oligarch, there is no humor in that twisting of the verse from the New Testament Book of Matthew, “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.”
Or in contemporary English, “Do unto Oohers and you would have the do unto you.”
The sentiment seems completely unfamiliar to our President or to his top henchmen and his Meat Cleaver Vigilantes.
The Golden Rule is not just a Christian instruction. Other faiths have their versions of it.
Sathya Si Baba, a Hindu guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual master Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were a blend of the Christianity and Muslim faiths, wrote: “You must examine every act to find out if it will cause pain to others; if it does, withdraw from it. Don’t do to others what you do not like done unto you. This is called the Golden Rule. Yes, it is the best test for distinguishing right from wrong.” (SSS 7:227
The equivalent for Buddhists from Udana-Varga 5:18is, “In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and families by generosity, courtesy, and benevolence, by treting them as he treats himself and by being as good at his word.”
Judaism: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)
Muhammed told his followers, “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Sunnah)
In The Great Learning, Ta Haio, Confucius comes pretty close to our contemporary language: “Do not unto others that you would not they should do until you.”
Mahabharta 5:17 tells Hindus, “Do not do to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain.”
Followers of the Indian faith called Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, say, “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard “all creatures as we regard our own self.”
The lesson from Grantha Sahib in the Sikh faith is, “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then shall thou become a partner in heaven.”
The Tao Tu Ching, The Book of the Way and Virtue teaches students of the Tao, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”
Zoraster, who also is known as Zarathustra, was a teacher and preacher of an ancient religion that influenced the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism—and the great Greek philosophers. His teaching recorded in Dadisten-i-dinik 94:5 reads, “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”
There also are Golden Rules from the writings of great philosophers:
About a century before the birth of Christ, Epictetus wrote, “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.”
Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German Philosopher, wrote, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”
The Greek philosopher Plato, in the 4th Century BCE wished, “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”
About a century later, another Greek philosopher, Socrates, offered, “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”
And Rome’s Seneca in the First Century CE, said in his Epistle 47:11, “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.”
Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations 2.1, said Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.
We’ll give American poet Edwin Markham the final observation: “We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.”
Markham might be best known for his simple poem, “Outwited”:
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
In Washington today, the Golden Rule is a tarnished gong, a clanging cymbal and the only circle is the one that shuts people out.
Wouldn’t a Christian Nation draw the circle that takes others in?