Words of Wisdom, part 4

Now that Baha'u'llah has told us about magnanimity and wealth, He continues with:

The source of all evil is for man to turn away from his Lord and set his heart on things ungodly.

Again, the source, the origin point, where it all begins.

It seems strange to me, though, because when I think of evil I think of it in terms of an absence of good, just as cold is actually a lesser degree of heat, or darkness an absence of light.

But then, as I think about it while sipping my coffee this morning, I'm reminded of an old experiment we did back when I was in university. The challenge was to try and walk a straight line. No problem. We just  began walking. Then we were asked to close our eyes and continue walking that straight line. Again, no problem. But the challenge came when we were to turn our head. At that point it didn't matter whether our eyes were open or closed, we always, and I mean always, drifted in the direction we were looking.

Now I imagine life as something like a line. If we are walking through our life, striving to develop into more spiritual beings, our attention is likely focused on God. We are probably looking in that direction. And, I guess, the tendency would be to drift in that direction. Seems good to me. But if that line has God at the far end, what's behind us? I would say our more materialistic existence. And if we turn away from God and begin focusing on the more material aspects of life, then it seems to me that we would drift in that direction.

Of course, this doesn't mean that paying attention to our material well-being is necessarily the beginning of evil. We are told in the Writings to work for a living and be conscious of how we use our material resources. That doesn't mean, though, that they have to be the focus of our entire life. We just read two paragraphs about expending our wealth in the path of God. I think this just clarifies it. Don't make the accumulation of those resources our entire focus. In other words, don't turn away from God.

There is another aspect I want to go back to, namely the idea that evil is the absence of good. Baha'u'llah seems to be hinting at something different here. But is He?

Let's go back to the idea of cold being an absence of heat. If you take a piece of iron and out it near a fire, it gets hot. It becomes a source of heat. But as soon as you move it away, all that heat it has stored begins to dissipate. It gradually becomes colder until it is no longer radiates that heat.

I think we're like that piece of iron. Maybe this is why we are supposed to read the Writings every day, pray every day, remember God every single day of our life. It's like keeping the iron near the fire. But when we turn away? Isn't that like removing the iron from the fire? Won't our own inner light and warmth begin to dissipate? Won't we become cold and dark, like that lump of metal? And when our heart becomes cold and dark? I can see how this simple turning away can be the "source of all evil".

And all of this follows so beautifully from the previous passages on magnanimity. When we feel spiritually wealthy, we are more able to give. When we turn away from the source of that wealth, we risk becoming increasingly preoccupied with what we lack.

Oh, and then all of this leads us right into the next passage:

The most burning fire is to question the signs of God, to dispute idly that which He hath revealed, to deny Him and carry one’s self proudly before Him.

But my coffee is cold now, and I have to get back to working on the house. Let's continue this next time.