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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
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"The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens."
10 stories on this theme.
An unhappy visitor from New York asks why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá always greets her in ‘Akká with “Be happy!” and what the spiritual life is. His answer stays with her, and she learns to know the spiritual life.
A woman visiting the Master in Haifa in May 1910 told Him she had had many sorrows. He told her to forget them, then shared Persian tea with her and gave her a package to take away.
In London ‘Abdu’l-Bahá heard laughter from the kitchen and went to share the joke between a Persian servant and an English housekeeper. He laughed heartily and gave each of them a small gold coin for being happy.
The Bahá’í teaching is based on moderation, not as asceticism.
When young Shoghi Effendi and his cousin came before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Master held up Shoghi Effendi’s happy, pleasant expression as the example to follow.
Even in prison ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote that His prison was His garden and paradise. Through illness, exile, imprisonment and the death of His sons He remained cheerful, teaching that happiness in hardship is the proof of nobility.
Stanwood Cobb recalled that joy was the keynote of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s teaching: He would greet visitors with “Are you happy?”, smile at the tears of the unhappy, and sometimes wipe those tears away with His own hands.
The Master wanted people to be happy so that they could know the spiritual life and make others happy, and He told one of His daughters travelling with her aunt to be a cheerful companion.
To Mrs Smith, a new Bahá'í from a distinguished Philadelphia family who was suffering with a headache, 'Abdu'l-Bahá explained that happiness keeps our health while depression of spirit begets diseases.
At lunch in ‘Akká in 1908, two pilgrims told ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that their own faults made them unhappy. He told them to think of the Bounty of God, and smiled as He recalled an Arabic saying about the peacock.