Luxuries cut off the freedom of communication. One who is
imprisoned by desires is always unhappy; the children of the Kingdom have
unchained themselves from their desires. Break all fetters and seek for
spiritual joy and enlightenment; then, though you walk on this earth, you will
perceive yourselves to be within the divine horizon. To man alone is this
possible. When we look about us we see every other creature captive to his
environment.
The bird is a captive in the air and the fish a captive in
the sea. Man alone stands apart and says to the elements, I will make you my
servants! I can govern you! He takes electricity, and through his ingenuity
imprisons it and makes of it a wonderful power for lighting, and a means of
communication to a distance of thousands of miles. But man himself may become a
captive to the things he has invented. His true second birth occurs when he is
freed from all material things: for he only is free who is not a captive to his
desires. He has then as Jesus has said, become captive to the Holy Spirit.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Notes of conversations;
‘Abdu’l-Baha in London’)
