Baha’u’llah sees the world in a similar way. The Bahai teachings identify our attachment to the things of this world as the cause of our sorrows.
“If we suffer it is the outcome of material things, and all the trials and troubles come from this world of illusion. For instance, a merchant may lose his trade and depression ensues. A workman is dismissed and starvation stares him in the face. A farmer has a bad harvest, anxiety fills his mind. A man builds a house which is burnt to the ground and he is straightway homeless, ruined, and in despair.
“All these examples are to show you that the trials which beset our every step, all our sorrow pain, shame and grief, are born in the world of matter…”
~ Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 110
Baha’u’llah likens humankind to a bird that has been attracted to the earth.
“Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true knowledge of your own selves… Suffer not your idle fancies, your evil passions, your insincerity and blindness of heart to dim the lustre, or stain the sanctity, of so lofty a station. Ye are even as the bird which soareth.. through the immensity of the heavens, until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longinly to the water and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now force to seek a dwelling-place upon the dust. Wherefore… defile not your wings with the clay of waywardness and vain desires, and suffer them not to be stained with the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered from soaring in the heavens of My divine knowledge.”
~ Baha’u’llah, Gleanings, no CLIII, pp. 325-6
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