Author: Firoozeh

The Forces of Our Time

Thank you Sue Emmel & Jeannie Ritchie

“The spiritual principle that negative thoughts and feelings block the possibility of transformation applies to society as a whole, as well as to interpersonal relations. This principle allows us to understand why protest movements are a less effective strategy for social change than attempting to provide a model for social evolution, which is the Bahá’í approach. Protesting against racism or environmental degradation or economic injustice usually focuses attention on the present and its imperfections instead of on the future and its potentialities. It does not create a positive dynamic for social change. Often protest movements, however well-intentioned, fall into negative patterns that create bitterness, estrangement and sometimes even violence, among the elements of society where change is needed.” – Hooper Dunbar, The Forces of Our Time

Pearls“Thoughts are a boundless sea, and the effects and varying conditions of existence are as the separate forms and individual limits of the waves; not until the sea boils up will the waves rise and scatter their pearls of knowledge on the shore of life.

~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization
http://www.bahai.org/…/abdul-b…/secret-divine-civilization/…

The pain of life

An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it.
“How does it taste?” the master asked.“Bitter,” said the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?”

“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.

“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.

“No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly,

“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”