what is hell? i maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
What is hell? I maintain that information technology is the suffering of being unable to beloved." – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The groovy Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote his terminal volume, The Brothers Karamazov, as the first part of a planned epic he chosen The Life of a Peachy Sinner—just sadly, he never lived to cease his entire epic. Instead, nosotros only accept that one final volume, which argues passionately about the biggest human questions of God, morality, reason and free will.
In the novel Ivan Karamazov rejects the earth that God has created, he says, because he has determined that God built it on a foundation of suffering.
Which brings us to number two on the listing of 5 Astounding Things You Didn't Know About the Infernal Underworld : We brand our own hell.
Oscar Wilde said "We are each our own devil, and we make the world our own hell." Can you think of someone you know who fits this clarification? The phrase "He's his own worst enemy" might come to listen when yous call up of that person. Only what does that hateful?
Generally, the ancients and the great Faiths tell u.s., our fate comes from our character. This theme, one of the oldest and most venerable of all human truths, basically maintains that our inner life determines our outer life. The Greek philosopher Heraclites said "Ethos Anthropos Daimon", which ways "A human being's grapheme is his fate."
Our character traits—the spiritual or material attributes, habits and actions we practice, cultivate and evince—direct the course of our lives. This consistent law of nature and the universe comes through in all great art. Shakespeare, Hugo, Dostoevsky—they all knew that character equals fate.
Our inner lives bring us pain or joy, suffering or spirituality. If we focus our efforts on developing our higher, more spiritual nature, on loving one another, we can reap the happiness and fulfillment an elevated character generates in life. If nosotros focus our efforts on our lower nature, the Baha'i teachings say, we chance actually losing our spiritual capacities:
When man allows the spirit, through his soul, to enlighten his understanding, then does he incorporate all Creation; because human, beingness the culmination of all that went before and thus superior to all previous evolutions, contains all the lower world inside himself. Illumined past the spirit through the instrumentality of the soul, human being's radiant intelligence makes him the crowning-point of Creation.
Only on the other manus, when human being does not open his mind and heart to the blessing of the spirit, but turns his soul towards the material side, towards the bodily function of his nature, then is he fallen from his high place and he becomes junior to the inhabitants of the lower creature kingdom. In this case the human being is in a sorry plight! For if the spiritual qualities of the soul, open up to the breath of the Divine Spirit, are never used, they become atrophied, enfeebled, and at terminal incapable; whilst the soul's material qualities alone being exercised, they become terribly powerful — and the unhappy, misguided human being, becomes more barbarous, more unjust, more vile, more fell, more malevolent than the lower animals themselves. All his aspirations and desires beingness strengthened by the lower side of the soul's nature, he becomes more and more than brutal, until his whole beingness is in no style superior to that of the beasts that perish. Men such equally this, plan to work evil, to injure and to destroy; they are entirely without the spirit of Divine compassion, for the celestial quality of the soul has been dominated by that of the cloth. If, on the contrary, the spiritual nature of the soul has been so strengthened that it holds the material side in subjection, then does the man approach the Divine… – Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, pp. 96-97.
A brutal, materialistic nature cuts us off from love. In fact, the Baha'i writings say, acquiring the spiritual virtues, morals and character that allow us to love defines the purpose of true religion:
The root crusade of wrongdoing is ignorance, and we must therefore hold fast to the tools of perception and knowledge. Good character must be taught. Light must be spread afar, so that, in the school of humanity, all may acquire the heavenly characteristics of the spirit, and meet for themselves beyond any doubt that there is no fiercer Hell, no more fiery completeness, than to possess a character that is evil and unsound; no more darksome pit nor loathsome torment than to prove along qualities which deserve to be condemned. – Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 136.
Religion, moreover, is non a serial of beliefs, a ready of customs; religion is the teachings of the Lord God, teachings which plant the very life of humankind, which urge high thoughts upon the mind, refine the character, and lay the groundwork for man's everlasting honour. – Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, pp. 52-53.
If Dostoevsky was right, and all suffering comes from our inability to love, then the development of a spiritual character which attracts, welcomes and generates honey should exist our highest human aspiration.
Source: https://bahaiteachings.org/hell-the-suffering-of-being-unable-to-love/
0 Response to "what is hell? i maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love."
Post a Comment