…in all the sorrows of life you can obtain supreme
consolation. If your days on earth are numbered, you know that everlasting life
awaits you. If material anxiety envelops you in a dark cloud, spiritual
radiance lightens your path. Verily, those whose minds are illumined by the
Spirit of the Most High have supreme consolation.
I myself was in prison forty years—one year alone would have
been impossible to bear—nobody survived that imprisonment more than a year!
But, thank God, during all those forty years I was supremely happy! Every day,
on waking, it was like hearing good tidings, and every night infinite joy was
mine. Spirituality was my comfort, and turning to God was my greatest joy. If
this had not been so, do you think it possible that I could have lived through
those forty years in prison?
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk, 22 November 1911,
Paris; ‘Paris Talks’)
