By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
“You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by, and so become yourself, because the past is just a goodbye.” – Graham Nash, 1968
I recently asked several good and decent folks—none actively involved with religion or a church—to describe the code that guides their life. I am an active Catholic, but most of them picked the same code I use, the Golden Rule.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
I was surprised, but also reminded. Most other religions and even secular philosophies espouse similar versions of this same basic principle, starting back during the very roots of civilization.
An Egyptian Late Period (c. 664–323 BCE) papyrus includes an early version of the Golden Rule: “That which you hate to be done to you, do not do to another.” The Rule is found in other writings from antiquity too.
In about 600 BCE, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Thales said, “Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.” An ancient Zoroastrianism text from about the same time proclaims, “That nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself.”
During a discourse in the Mahābhārata, the Sanskrit epic of India written perhaps as early as 400 BCE, a sage shares the following dharma or wisdom with a king: “One should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one’s own self.”
The Judeo-Christian version of the Golden Rule started with the Talmud. In Shabbat 31a, the Jewish scholar Hillel proclaims, “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation.”
Although stated quite eloquently by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, a foundational text of Western Christianity, the Golden Rule also transcends the East/West spiritual dichotomy.
The Bahá’í Faith (from Iran) explains, “Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.”
Asian Buddhism recommends, “Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”
In China, Confucius taught, “One word which sums up the basis of all good conduct….loving kindness. Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.”
Hinduism (from India) provides, “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.”
Islam admonishes its adherents, “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.”
Even a proverb from the African polytheistic Yoruba religion in Nigeria tells us, “One who is going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.”
In America, the Golden Rule is found in both traditional indigenous spirituality, as well as more modern and contemporary religious movements. For example, Lakota medicine man Nicholas Black Elk said, “All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.”
Just very 150 years ago, Joseph Smith—founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—said, “Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles [designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease, and us to become [friends and family].”
Even atheists and icons of secular culture subscribe to the notion of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Ten Commandments of Atheism includes the principle.
Painter Norman Rockwell never went to church as an adult, but in April 1961 his own artistic rendering of the Golden Rule appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Today, the United Nations displays a mosaic of that painting, along with a multi-faith poster showing the Golden Rule in sacred writings from 13 faith traditions.
In an era of global turmoil, division, and war, it’s rather comforting to know that what I think of as a great Gospel mandate also is a global and universal principle that transcends race, religion, nationality, and every other label we humans are so good at giving each other.
Maybe there’s hope for us after all.
(Photo: Mosaic of Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule painting, United Nations, New York)
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
