The Secret Of Divine Civilization

Today, the Duke Baha'i Club met at The Marketplace on Duke's East Campus to start a weekly deepening. The group decided our first book to tackle this semester, since it is already so late in the school term, will be the compact "The Secret Of Divine Civilization" by 'Abdu'l-Baha. Haley, Shawheen, Leigh-Ann, Ryo and I took turns reading and discussing passages from the first few pages we managed to get through.

I was particularly keen on getting out of the house for a couple hours, and this "book club" was just a perfect way of spending a Sunday afternoon doing something intellectual - a good escape for a mind yearning for a few hours removed from baby babbling and singing. Plus, I have not seen many friends (other than the ones who drop by the house to see us) and I was eager to meet up with the young, hip, but all too stressed, Duke students.

A passage we read really struck me and got me thinking:

"We should continually be establishing new bases for human happiness and creating and promoting new instrumentalities toward this end."

What 'new instrumentalities' will bring about human happiness?

The passage continues:

"How excellent, how honorable is man if he arises to fulfil his responsibilities; how wretched and contemptible, if he shuts his eyes to the welfare of society and wastes his precious life in pursuing his own selfish interests and personal advantages."

Most I know would agree with that statement, yet most would just as quickly point out how current standards set by society almost encourage this type of selfish promotion, or are hardenned by the effects such behaviour (societal norm) imparts.

OK, lastly, and this book (so far as we've read) is filled with such strongly worded statements:

"And this is man's uttermost wretchedness: that he should live inert, apathetic, dull, involved only with his own base appetites. When he is thus, he has his being in the deepest ignorance and savagery, sinking lower than the brute beasts."

"... They are like the brutes: Yea, they go more astray ..."

So that of course gets me thinking about my life, and my contribution to society, and how one's profession, career, skill, craft play a significant role.

I have a lot of personal searching to do...