Some people blame social media for the rampant spread of “insult culture,” but it certainly existed before we had Facebook and Twitter. Which brings me to the idea of political correctness and our insult-laden cultures. RELATED: What Does it Mean to Be “Religious?” You’ve heard the expression “I felt like crawling into a hole”? Well, as I thought about the hurtful things I’d said in the past, whether consciously or unconsciously, I truly did feel like hiding myself “in the lowest strata of the earth.” Yikes! When I first read that, I thought back on all the times I’d heedlessly violated that verbal Golden Rule, and I cringed inwardly. – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 1, p. Therefore, my advice to you is, endeavour as much as ye can to show kindness toward all men, deal with perfect love, affection and devotion with all the individuals of humanity. Should any soul desire the abasement of his kind, undoubtedly his non-entity is better for him, for his non-existence is better than his existence and his death better than his life. Should any soul become the cause of grief to any heart or despondency to any soul, it is better for him to hide himself in the lowest strata of the earth than to walk upon the earth. The Baha’i teachings express that kindly behavioral admonition even more strongly than I’d ever heard it before: When I became a Baha’i as a teenager, and began to read the Baha’i writings, I discovered that powerful rule of verbal karma all over again. I haven’t always managed to faithfully follow that rule-sorry, Grandma-but I’ve tried. ![]() Thumper’s Rule taught me that if I have something to say, I need to first internally ask myself whether it will hurt or insult or injure anyone. You’ve heard of karma-the idea that all your actions, good and bad, eventually come back to you? Well, Thumper’s Rule describes a kind of verbal karma, which tells us it’s our job to keep what we say positive, truthful and kind unless, sooner or later, we want to hear things that aren’t so kind repeated right back to us. Your words, Grandma taught me, can be weapons. I quickly learned, as most kids do, that a person’s words can do actual harm to others-and to themselves. So as I grew up, I came to think of Thumper’s Rule as a kind of verbal Golden Rule. It didn’t matter if you did it intentionally or not-what mattered, she taught me, was the inner quality of kindness and how I practiced it. She believed that people with what she called “good breeding” simply didn’t ever proactively try to hurt others-and that when they did, it constituted a major spiritual flaw. If you did ever insult, backbite or somehow offend another person, she believed, an immediate apology was in order-and then, a period of somber reflection to consider what gross defect in your character would make you want to purposely hurt someone else’s feelings. To her, no one had any right to speak in a derogatory way about anyone else-it just wasn’t done where she came from. RELATED: The Human Brain: Which Part Contains the Conscience? I can still hear her gentle admonitions ringing in my ears, although she went on to her eternal reward many years ago, God rest her sweet soul. I take that back-at least a thousand times. ![]() My grandmother must’ve told me “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” five hundred times as I grew up, as she attempted to teach me to be courteous and kind to others. ![]() ![]() If you were raised the way I was, you instantly recognize that principle.
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