Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Our Dangerous Physical World

There's no way to avoid the fact that the physical world can be dangerous for our bodies.

How about being dangerous for our souls?

Some folks can't bridge the apparent contradiction between being spiritual and being in a body.

Then, there are the exaggerations of religious teachings that claim literal truth for the idea that the body and its world are evil.

Try out this reasoning:

If God is Good then being in a body for awhile must be capable of being good and all this physical stuff must have some good reason for existing.

The best answer I've found is that the World is just fine if it doesn't get between us and God.

Today's quote from Reality puts it more strongly; but then, sometimes we need a severe viewpoint:

"ALAS! ALAS! O LOVERS OF WORLDLY DESIRE!

Even as the swiftness of lightning ye have passed by the Beloved One, and have set your hearts on satanic fancies. Ye bow the knee before your vain imagining, and call it truth. Ye turn your eyes towards the thorn, and name it a flower. Not a pure breath have ye breathed, nor hath the breeze of detachment been wafted from the meadows of your hearts. Ye have cast to the winds the loving counsels of the Beloved and have effaced them utterly from the tablet of your hearts, and even as the beasts of the field, ye move and have your being within the pastures of desire and passion."

Bahá’u’lláh: The Hidden Words, Persian #45