Avoiding Addictions
O ye, God's loved ones! Experience hath shown how greatly the renouncing of smoking, of intoxicating drink, and of opium, conduceth to health and vigour, to the expansion and keenness of the mind and to bodily strength. There is today a people who strictly avoid...
read moreSelfish Desires
In other words, the heart that partakes of the outpouring grace of the Holy Spirit and becomes sanctified is made goodly and pure. The purpose is that the reality of man be purified and sanctified from the defilements of the world of nature, which are vile attributes...
read moreHardship
. . . if thy daily living become difficult, soon thy Lord will bestow upon thee that which will satisfy thee. Be patient in time of affliction and trial, endure every difficulty and hardship with a dilated heart, attracted spirit and eloquent tongue in remembrance of...
read moreBody Image
O Son of Man! The temple of being is My throne; cleanse it of all things, that there I may be established and there I may abide. (Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden Words, Arabic 58) I was in a woman’s crisis shelter shortly after my book Violence and Abuse: Reasons and Remedies...
read moreAligning with the Will of God
The true worshipper, while praying, should endeavour not so much to ask God to fulfill his wishes and desires, but rather to adjust these and make them conform to the Divine Will. Only through such an attitude can one derive that feeling of inner peace and contentment...
read moreFeeling Hurt
We must never dwell too much on the attitudes and feelings of our fellow-believers towards us. What is most important is to foster love and harmony and ignore any rebuffs we may receive; in this way the weakness of human nature and any peculiarity or attitude of any...
read moreAccepting Invitations
Whensoever ye be invited to a banquet or festive occasion, respond with joy and gladness, and whoever fulfilleth his promise will be safe from reproof. (Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas 156, p. 75) I used to think that this quote meant that I needed to accept and attend...
read moreWays to Combat Stress
. . . in view of these passages, you may wish to focus some of your reading and meditations on the lives and sufferings of the Central Figures of the Faith. Similarly, we are assured by the Guardian that the Tablet of Ahmad, the Healing Prayer and the Fire Tablet...
read moreImpatience and Frustration
While there are opportunities for greater growth than is occurring, neither your Assembly nor the friends must burden themselves with feelings of failure at every disappointment, for such feelings are self-fulfilling and can easily cause stagnation in the...
read moreAvoiding Denial
Please God, that we avoid the land of denial, and advance into the ocean of acceptance, so that we may perceive, with an eye purged from all conflicting elements, the worlds of unity and diversity, of variation and oneness, of limitation and detachment, and wing our...
read morePerfectionism
. . . to be free of one's ego is a hallmark of perfection. We humans are never going to become perfect, for perfection belongs to a realm we are not destined to enter. However, we must constantly mount higher, seek to be more perfect . . . perfection will never be...
read moreDepression
Be not in despair, but rather smile by the mercy of thy Lord; and be not sorrowful when meeting with worldly difficulties and depressions, for they pass away - and thine shall be immortality during ages and centuries, times and cycles. ('Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets of...
read moreOur True Life
Nearness to Thee is the true life of them who are Thy lovers. (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 77) I often wondered why “to know and worship God” is why we were created, and therefore it was our sole purpose in life. I always wanted my life...
read morePromoting Health
But man hath perversely continued to serve his lustful appetites, and he would not content himself with simple foods. Rather, he prepared for himself food that was compounded of many ingredients, of substances differing one from the other. With this, and with the...
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