Pause and Reflect: Meditations for the Life of the Soul

One Voice Press

1233 Central St., Evanston, IL 60202

ISBN: 978-1-61851-261-1 28 27 26 25 4 3 2 1

Cover design by Carlos Esparza Book design by Patrick Falso

INTRODUCTION

There is much in our modern world competing for our attention. Technology is changing at a rapid pace making it difficult to keep up and process its affects, and everywhere the world presents distressing new realities. As we go about our daily lives we are seemingly assaulted with an endless series of distractions. The need to retreat from the stress and chaos that so often surrounds us, to center ourselves and reflect on our inner reality, has never been of more vital importance. It is with this in mind that One Voice Press is happy to present this, the seventh title in its Pause & Reflect series.

Pause & Reflect is a series that presents meditative passages from the writings of the Bahá’í Faith arranged around particular themes. While the Bahá’í Faith places a great deal of importance on prayer, meditation, and the cultivation of spirituality, it is also a religion that calls for action and societal transformation.

Meditation, from a Bahá’í perspective, is not exclusively a means for personal growth but also a tool that should equip us with insights and awareness that can be translated into action both in our lives and in the communities in which we live.

The theme of this book is the life of the soul. According to the Bahá’í writings, there are two aspects to our reality as human beings—the physical and the spiritual. We live in the material world, and we navigate it in our physical bodies, but there is a deeper, spiritual aspect to our existence, and it finds expression in our souls. We are each endowed with a unique and everlasting soul that, while we are alive, is associated with our bodies much in the same way light is reflected in a mirror. The soul is not inside the body, nor is it constrained by it. When the body perishes and we die, according to the Bahá’í teachings, our soul enters a more expansive spiritual reality and lives on and progresses in the worlds of the spirit.

What can we do with this information here and now? Well, from a Bahá’í perspective, just as the baby in the womb develops limbs and organs that are utilized in its life beyond the womb, the soul in this life develops spiritual qualities—such as kindness, love, generosity,

The Existence and Purpose of the Soul

Know,

verily, that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him.

The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence.

Verily

I say, the human soul is, in its essence, one of the signs of God, a mystery among His mysteries. It is one of the mighty signs of the Almighty, the harbinger that proclaimeth the reality of all the worlds of God. Within it lieth concealed that which the world is now utterly incapable of apprehending.

Consider . . . the sun when it is completely hidden behind the clouds. Though the earth is still illumined with its light, yet the measure of light which it receiveth is considerably reduced. Not until the clouds have dispersed, can the sun shine again in the plenitude of its glory. Neither the presence of the cloud nor its absence can, in any way, affect the inherent splendor of the sun. The soul of man is the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its sustenance, and should be so regarded.

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