Gravity
Just as the earth attracts everything to the centre of gravity, and every object thrown upward into space will come down, so also material ideas and worldly thoughts attract man to the centre of self. Anger, passion, ignorance, prejudice, greed, envy, covetousness, jealousy and suspicion prevent man from ascending to the realms of holiness, imprisoning him in the claws of self and the cage of egotism. The physical man, unassisted by the divine power, trying to escape from one of these invisible enemies, will unconsciously fall into hands of another. No sooner does he attempt to soar upward than the density of the love of self, like the power of gravity, draws him to the centre of the earth. The only power that is capable of delivering man from this captivity is the power of the Holy Spirit. The attraction of the power of the Holy Spirit is so effective that it keeps man ever on the path of upward ascension.
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Star of the West, v6, p. 126
How many hopes and dreams have blazed the sky And, torn from spiraling path, have met the pull of gravity, Plunging in fiery agony to earth And there died out?
- Bahá’í World, Volume 12, p. 939
Quote of the Day
Fidal 12 Mashiyyat 182 B.E.
. . . it is clear that there is a profound difference between the Bahá’í attitude to the circumcision of males and the excision of females.
From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to the Office of Public Information – Haifa, 2 January 1992