Prescription for Living by Rúhíyyih Rabbání

Author:Rúhíyyih Rabbání [Rabbání, Rúhíyyih]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bahá’í
Publisher: Bahá’í eBooks Publications
Published: 2015-05-11T21:00:00+00:00

10

The need for a perfect example

Though our most distinguishing feature is our brain, we seldom use it to think deeply; we skim over the surface of life with remarkable rapidity, much like those long-legged water bugs that paddle themselves gaily over the top of the pond, never seeming even to get their feet wet. So many of our thoughts we accept ready-made, handed to us by our ancestors, our friends, our teachers or our clergymen. We are for the most part too lazy or too indifferent, if challenged, to take an old thought off and try on a new one, to see if it fits the purposes and facts of life better than the old one. We should, indeed intelligence demands that we respect the views of those who are more experienced, more mature, wiser and more knowledgeable than we are. But there is a difference between this and blind, stupid mummery. A man should be something for himself; if his father is a Unitarian, he should not become one merely because he inherits the belief along with his last name and the farm and cows. Likewise, in every important field in life individuals should exert their God-given prerogative of thinking and choosing for themselves, otherwise the values they possess in life are absolutely useless to them. If a person is a democrat, a Catholic, a Freemason and a dentist, only because his father was a democrat, a Catholic, a Freemason and a dentist before him, what earthly use are these things to him in developing his own character? They are like splints instead of bones, outside of him, bolstering him up, instead of being part of his own internal anatomy. Everything a man’s father was may be excellent, it may be just the best thing for him too–but he should think about it and assimilate it into himself by his own volition; for the reverse can also be true, everything his father was may be the worst possible thing for him and ruin him if he follows the same path. Blind imitation of others is not only unnecessary, stupid and lazy but can lead to great personal mistakes in one’s own life and, on a larger scale, to historic tragedies that affect the lives of vast numbers of people.

If the Jews in the days of Christ had been dispassionate and open-minded, they would not have crucified Him. They might not all have accepted Him or His teachings, or even believed He was teaching something worth listening to, but they would have let Him be. Instead however, they followed blindly and stupidly their leaders, who were in their turn immured in tradition, clothed mentally from head to foot in inherited dogmas and prejudices. The result was that the river of Christianity was turned out of its natural bed and instead of first irrigating the lives of the Chosen People, to whom Christ came, as their promised Messiah, it passed them by completely and shed its life-giving waters in distant lands.

Human

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