Self-control and empathy

"He who is master of himself is greater than he who is the master of the world."

"Happiness is born of altruism and misery of selfishness."

~ Siddhârtha Gautama, known as Buddha

The necessity of "action" by Benjamin Disraeli

Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

~ Benjamin Disraeli

Wise insights inspired from Taoism

"Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment."

~ Lao-Tseu, Tao-tö king

When will mankind adopt the Faith ?

Once Varqa asked Baha'u'llah, "How will the Cause of God be universally adopted by mankind?" Baha'u'llah said that first, the nations of the world would arm themselves with infernal engines of war, and when fully armed would attack each other like bloodthirsty beasts. As a result, there would be anormous bloodshed throughout the world. Then the wise men from all nations would gather together to investigate the cause of such bloodshed. They would come to the conclusion that prejudices were the cause, a major form being religious prejudice. They would therefore try to eliminate religion so as to eliminate prejudice. Later they would realize that man cannot live without religion. Then they would study the teachings of all religions to see which of the religions conformed to the prevailing conditions of the time. It is then that the Cause of God would become universal.

~ Revelation of Baha'u'llah, vol. 4, p.56

Dealing with insults

The Buddha explained how to handle insult and maintain compassion.
One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others," he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."

Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man "Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?"

The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to me, because I bought the gift."

The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself."

"If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy."

The young man listened closely to these wise words of the Buddha. "You are right, o Enlightened One, "he said. "Please teach me the path of love. I wish to become your follower."

The Buddha answered kindly, "Of course. I teach anyone who truly wants to learn. Come with me."

~ Stories about Buddha

Detachment

"Detachment is as the sun; in whatsoever heart it doth shine it quenches the covetousness of self. He whose sight is illumined with the light of understanding will assuredly detach himself from the world and the vanities thereof.... Let not the world and its vileness grieve you. Happy is he whom riches fill not with vainglory, nor poverty with sorrow."

~ Baha'u'llah, The Divine Art of Living

What is the Bahai Faith ?

Official definition :

The Bahá'í Faith upholds the unity of God, recognizes the unity of His Prophets, and inculcates the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the entire human race. It proclaims the necessity and the inevitability of the unification of mankind, asserts that it is gradually approaching, and claims that nothing short of the transmuting spirit of God, working through His chosen Mouthpiece in this day, can ultimately succeed in bringing it about. It, moreover, enjoins upon its followers the primary duty of an unfettered search after truth, condemns all manner of prejudice and superstition, declares the purpose of religion to be the promotion of amity and concord, proclaims its essential harmony with science, and recognizes it as the foremost agency for the pacification and the orderly progress of human society. It unequivocally maintains the principle of equal rights, opportunities and privileges for men and women, insists on compulsory education, eliminates extremes of poverty and wealth, abolishes the institution of priesthood, prohibits slavery, asceticism, mendicancy and monasticism, prescribes monogamy, discourages divorce, emphasizes the necessity of strict obedience to one's government, exalts any work performed in the spirit of service to the level of worship, urges either the creation or the selection of an auxiliary international language, and delineates the outlines of those institutions that must establish and perpetuate the general peace of mankind.

~ Shoghi Effendi to the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine (1947)

Justice

"Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity. Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face. Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge. Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men. Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression. Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts. Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be an ornament to the countenance of truth, a crown to the brow of fidelity, a pillar of the temple of righteousness, a breath of life to the body of mankind, an ensign of the hosts of justice, a luminary above the horizon of virtue, a dew to the soil of the human heart, an ark on the ocean of knowledge, a sun in the heaven of bounty, a gem on the diadem of wisdom, a shining light in the firmament of thy generation, a fruit upon the tree of humility."

~ Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 93

The Power of Love

"Only by Love can men see me, and know me, and come to me."

~ Baghavad Gita


"We are what we think,
having become what we thought.
Like the wheel that follows the cart-pulling ox,
Sorrow follows an evil thought.

And joy follows a pure thought,
like a shadow faithfully tailing a man.
We are what we think,
having become what we thought...

There is only one eternal law:
Hate never destroys hate; only love does."

~ Dhammapada

Friendship

"There is always an important difference between friends and tested friends. No matter how precious the first type may be, the future of the Cause rests upon the latter."

~ Shoghi Effendi, The Light of Divine Guidance v I, p. 34

Be Happy ! :)

If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?

...This is the time for growing; the season for joyous gathering! Take the cup of the Testament in thy hand; leap and dance with ecstasy in the triumphal procession of the Covenant! Lay your confidence in the everlasting bounty, turn to the presence of the generous God; ask assistance from the Kingdom of Abha; seek confirmation from the Supreme World; turn thy vision to the horizon of eternal wealth; and pray for help from the Source of Mercy!

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 351

Do not feel depressed about not finding the right job

You should never be too depressed about your dissatisfaction concerning not finding a job you like, a place in the world that fits you. If you analyze it, this general sense of mis-fit is one of the curses of your generation, one of the products of the world's disequilibrium and chaos. It is not confined to your life, it is pretty general.

~ Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer. Shoghi Effendi, Unfolding Destiny, p. 454

Our materialistic civilization

... the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is the lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind that people in general do no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence. There is not sufficient demand for things that we should call spiritual to differentiate them from the needs and requirements of our physical existence.
The universal crisis affecting mankind is, therefore, essentially spiritual in its causes. The spirit of the age, taken on the whole, is irreligious. Man's outlook on life is too crude and materialistic to enable him to elevate himself into the higher realms of the spirit.
It is this condition, so sadly morbid, into which society has fallen, that religion seeks to improve and transform...

~ From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, 8 December 1935. Lights of Guidance, no. 449, pp. 134-5


It would be perhaps impossible to find a nation or people not in a state of crisis today. The materialism, the lack of true religion and the consequent baser forces in human nature which are being released, have brought the whole world to the brink of probably the greatest crisis it has ever faced or will have to face. The Baha'is are a part of the world. They too feel the great pressures which are brought to bear upon all people today, whoever and wherever they may be.

~ From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, 19 July 1956. Lights of Guidance, no. 440, p. 131

Attitude towards oneself and others

Be very demanding with yourself and expect few from others, thus you will prevent yourself from getting into many troubles.

~ Confucius

Others can raise our spirits or depress us

There are persons with whom we associate and converse whose utterances are life-imparting, joy-giving. The withered and faded are refreshed, the joyless become happy, the extinct become enkindled and the lifeless are quickened with the breaths of the Holy Spirit. The one drowned in the sea of hesitation and doubt is saved by the life-boat of certainty and assurance; the one attached to this material world becomes severed and the one steeped in blameworthy deeds is adorned with praiseworthy attributes. On the other hand there are some persons whose very respiration extinguishes the light of faith; whose conversation weakens firmness and steadfastness in the Cause of God; whose company diverts one's attention from the kingdom of Abha.

~ Attributed to 'Abdu'l-Baha, Fire and Gold, Benefiting from Life's Tests, Brian Kurzius, p.84-85

The perfect human sentiments and virtues

You live to do good and to bring happiness to others.

~ 'Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 112

The greatest happiness can only be found in the happiness of others.

~ Baha'u'llah, the Divine Art of Living

Inspiring quote from Sir Winston Churchill

Success consists in going from chess to chess, without losing one's enthusiasm.

~ Sir Winston Churchill

Guidances

Man must always associate with those from whom he can get light, or be with those to whom he can give light. He must either receive or give instructions. Otherwise, being with people without these two intentions, he is spending his time for nothing, and, by so doing, he is neither gaining nor causing others to gain.

~ 'Abdu'l-Baha, Misc Baha'i, The Diary of Juliet Thompson

Dynamics of prayer

While in Haifa, the beloved Guardian of the Cause gave to the writer (Mrs Ruth Moffat), the most concise, complete, and effective formula she has ever seen, for the Dynamics of Prayer. After saying to stress the need of more prayers and meditation among the friends, he said to use these five steps if we had a problem of any kind for which we desired a solution or wished help.

First Step. - Pray and meditate about it. Use the prayers of the Manifestations as they have the greatest power. Then remain in the silence of contemplation for a few minutes.

Second Step. - Arrive at a decision and hold this. This decision is usually born during the contemplation. It may seem almost impossible of accomplishment but if it seems to be as answer to a prayer or a way of solving the problem, then immediately take the next step.

Third Step. - Have determination to carry the decision through.
Many fail here. The decision, budding into determination, is blighted and instead becomes a wish or a vague longing. When determination is born, immediately take the next step.

Fourth Step. - Have faith and confidence that the power will flow through you, the right way will appear, the door will open, the right thought, the right message, the right principle or the right book will be given you. Have confidence, and the right thing will come to your need. Then, as you rise from prayer, take at once the fifth step.

Fifth Step. - Then, he said, lastly, ACT; Act as though it had all been answered. Then act with tireless, ceaseless energy. And as you act, you, yourself, will become a magnet, which will attract more power to your being, until you become an unobstructed channel for the Divine power to flow through you. Many pray but do not remain for the last half of the first step. Some who meditate arrive at a decision, but fail to hold it. Few have the determination to carry the decision through, still fewer have the confidence that the right thing will come to their need. But how many remember to act as though it had all been answered? How true are those words - "Greater than the prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered" and greater than the way it is uttered is the spirit in which it is carried out.

~ Selected Statements and Special Documents Prepared by the National Spiritual Assembly, (Compilations, Principles of Bahai Administration, p. 91)

Four qualities which the Blessed Beauty [Baha'u'llah] loved to see manifested in people

The Blessed Beauty [Bahá’u’lláh] often remarked:
"There are four qualities which I love to see manifested in people:
first, enthusiasm and courage;
second, a face wreathed in smiles and a radiant countenance;
third, that they see with their own eyes and not through the eyes of others;
fourth, the ability to carry a task once begun, through to its end."

~ Stories of Bahá'u'lláh, Furútan, `Alí-Akbar (editor), 1986