The limbs and organs of the body are instruments for using great powers in the Universe. One may not misuse or leave unused the instrument of a universal power without paying the penalty; for each one has these organs in order that he may put them to physical use to further universal purposes, and become conscious of the connection between his body and the Universe.
When these organs are misused, or used to injure others, it is a more serious thing than at first appears. It is an interference with the plan of the Universe by turning the individual against the whole.
The hands are organs of executive power. One is deprived of the use of the hands as a result of not having used them when they should have been, or if they have served against the bodies or interests of others. Employing a hand to abuse another's body by breaking his limb, or by signing unjust orders, or employing the hand generally in acts of oppression, extortion and crooked dealing, may result in deprivation of the use of the hand for some time, or in its loss.
Loss of the use of a limb may result from any kind of "accident".
Immediate physical causes are not the real or ultimate, but only the apparent causes. In the case of one who loses a limb by the unhappy mistake of a surgeon or nurse, the immediate cause of the loss is said to be carelessness or accident; but the real cause is some past action or inaction of the maimed himself, which is exteriorized by means of the carelessness. It is in just payment that he is deprived of the use of his limb.
A surgeon and nurse too careless of or inattentive to their patients will themselves sometime suffer at the hands of others. The pain is for the purpose of
teaching how others have felt under like conditions; of preventing them from repeating similar actions and of making them value more the power which may be
used through the limb. If they do not learn from the loss, they will again suffer.
He who inflicts wilful injury upon others, who forces or inveigles others into plots or fights where physical suffering results, and who seems to benefit from the
wrong done them and to enjoy prestige and unjust gains, may live out his life unharmed, but the thought of the wrong is still with him; his thought is not fully exteriorized; from it he cannot escape.
