The Golden Rule

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

(George Bernard Shaw)

One golden rule to find them all.

One golden rule beneath them all.

Not owned.

Not invented.

Not confined.

A single current

running beneath

every river of faith.

It cannot be claimed

by any one,

one philosophy,

one prophet,

one scripture.

And yet,

it is claimed

by them all.

Civilizations rise or fall

according to their intimacy

with this law.

Communities evolve

when conflict

is measured against it.

What is this rule

that echoes

through ages?

Do not do to another

what you would not endure.

Love for your neighbor

what you love for yourself.

Hurt not others

in ways that would wound you.

Regard another’s gain

as your own gain.

Another’s loss as

your own loss.

One sentence.

Many tongues.

I am another you,

as you are another me.

When you and I bow

to our true nature,

we are one.

Confucius whispered it.

The Buddha embodied it.

Krishna’s epic sang it.

Hillel summarized it.

Jesus fulfilled it.

Muhammad affirmed it.

The Tao flowed through it.

Before them,

Greek philosophers

intuited it.

Before them all,

ancestral civilisations

revered them.

After them,

mystics remembered it.

Across

deserts,

mountains,

jungles,

oceans,

forests,

shrines,

temples,

synagogues,

mosques,

cathedrals,

the same

recognition

surfaced:

The other is not other.

The Golden Rule

is not moral instruction.

It is metaphysical

revelation.

It does not ask you to be kind

because kindness is good.

It asks you to be kind

because separation is illusion.

When you harm another,

you fracture yourself.

When you honor another,

you strengthen the whole.

All religions contain truth.

No religion contains all truth.

But this thread,

this golden filament.

is woven through them all.

It is older than doctrine.

Deeper than law.

Brighter than division.

It is the recognition

that consciousness is shared.

And so the rule remains simple:

Treat another as your own extended being.

Not because a book commands it.

But because it is true.

The Golden Rule

is not about behavior.

It is about identity.

When we remember who we are,

we no longer need commandments.

We act from knowing.

One golden rule to find them all.

One golden rule beneath them all.

And in its light,

darkness cannot bind.

Yo lo Creo/

I believe and so it is