…when man does not open his mind and heart to the blessing
of the spirit, but turns his soul towards the material side, towards the bodily
part of his nature, then is he fallen from his high place and he becomes
inferior to the inhabitants of the lower animal kingdom. In this case the man
is in a sorry plight! For if the spiritual qualities of the soul, open to the
breath of the Divine Spirit, are never used, they become atrophied, enfeebled,
and at last incapable; whilst the soul’s material qualities alone being
exercised, they become terribly powerful—and the unhappy, misguided man,
becomes more savage, more unjust, more vile, more cruel, more malevolent than
the lower animals themselves. All his aspirations and desires being strengthened
by the lower side of the soul’s nature, he becomes more and more brutal, until
his whole being is in no way superior to that of the beasts that perish. Men
such as this, plan to work evil, to hurt 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 material.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk,
November 17, 1911, Paris; ‘Paris Talks’)
