When considering virtue the natural tendency is to disregard the laws which govern human nature. The mystic therefore does not take the point of view of some preachers who urge and impose upon all those who come to them that they should be good, that they should be kind, and that they should be just. A mystic recognizes that man's first response is to react in accordance with what strikes him. We already see this tendency in a child. When we smile at the child it will laugh, but if we show it a hand as if we were going to strike it the child will do the same unless it is afraid; at least its desire would be the same, it would want to hit back. Therefore there is nothing to be surprised at if Moses stood before the multitude and told them, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." What else could he have said to them? "Be ye kind and saintly and most loving'? Would they have listened to that?

Even on the mystic path, the first step of an adept is to recognize fully the law of reciprocity. The difference between an adept and an ordinary person is that an ordinary person does automatically what the mystic begins to do consciously. In considering the law of reciprocity one must not overlook human nature: how a man always sees written before him in big letters what he has done, but in very small letters what the other has done. He always overestimates his own goodness, his generosity, his kindness, his service to another person; and he blinds himself to the kindness, goodness, and generosity of the other.

Thus it is seldom that people live the law of reciprocity, although everyone is sure that he returns love for love and hate for hate. Perhaps he returns hate for hate, but whether he returns love for love is another question. The reason is that the first thing man thinks of is himself, what he feels, what he thinks, what he says, what he does; and it is only his second thought that he gives to what another person says, thinks, feels, or does. So that which one thinks, says, feels, or does stands clearly and fully before one, and all that another person feels, thinks, says, or does is something that one sees from a great distance. And when it is something which concerns himself, a person very often views it with only his own interest in mind.

Once a man has begun to recognize the law of reciprocity, from that moment he begins to open his eyes to what is called justice. We have wrongly given the name justice to man-made laws.

Justice is a sense; and when we recognize justice as a sense we begin to see justice as a living spirit. To explain this in ordinary terms: if the carpet is not laid properly there is a sense in us which tells us that it is not right, a kind of discomfort comes over us only from looking at it; or if the lamp is not standing in its usual place on the table there is a sense in us which gives us discomfort, which makes us think that it is not right, that it ought to be the other way. And it is the same with justice. It is a sense of seeing the right proportion, the right weight, the right measure. No one can live without it and be a saint; this is the first step he must take, and if he does not take this step then he will surely fall into a ditch before he arrives at saintliness. There are two ends to a line: one end is ignorance, the other end is innocence, and in between is wisdom. And as the two ends are similar, so innocence and ignorance seem to be the same; only, the difference is that in order to go from ignorance to innocence we have to cross wisdom. Very often people confuse the ignorant and the innocent soul.

Reciprocity does not mean allowing a larger measure to the other, or giving a greater weight for the money he pays; by reciprocity is meant just dealing in all the different walks of life, remembering at the same time the weak point in human nature: that man always thinks he is just though he is often far from being so.