“Man’s Inhumanity to Man”

Again the dead past revealed another scene. I saw myself in the person of an ill-fed, ill-treated slave, ever hungry, wretched, too much so to feel resentment. I died hungry, and then had a devachan of seeming realization of my wants. ‘Then again rebirth, and through a karma not here to be explained, the new man had ease, wealth, plenty. But a physical karma pursued, and he was ever hungry in the midst of plentitude, and lazy when action was necessary. This state begot disease, and the product of (in his previous life) “man’s inhumanity to man,” was afflicted with cancer of the stomach. This killed the ferocious appetite, and the sybarite, free of this, set to work to cure himself. Finding he must fail, he sought comfort in religion, and went forth to the wilderness to become a religious hermit. Now, a hermit’s life is one of uselessness to mankind. In that lone state my individuality lost opportunities to cultivate moral strength by worldly contact, and behold me after death come again to life as Zailm, weak enough to sin with Lolix and beget then a karma that lasted, with newly got vigor, till only a few years ago, punishing me more bitterly than death, as thou, knowest. If Zailm, had sorrow, thou knowest he had also joy. So every life-karma is made up of sunshine and shadow. “A tooth for a tooth?” Yea! But also “for a kiss a kiss.”