Throughout the city, state and nation during the period of spring graduations are foremost on many agendas. Whether from preschool or post-graduate settings. Few indeed are those who remain untouched by the transitions.
As mankind matures and development of science and technology continues at a (literal) maddening pace, the dire necessity of comparable spiritual education becomes more apparent. How true the statement, “To educate in mind and not in morals is to educate a minis to society.”
The present state of our national and world economy certainly attests to this truth. It is also proof positive that our inability or refusal to accept truth does not change truth, only our lives.
In this American nation elementary and secondary education are mandatory, spiritual and higher education are not. Consequently we inevitably inherit the societal results of increasingly sharper minds and duller morals often with far too many doomed to self-destruct if and when not more evenly balanced.
The primary key to a spiritualized society is the spiritual education of children when of course contingent upon spiritual attitudes of their teachers-from the first teacher (the parent) through secondary education. Teachers should show an attitude of love and understanding toward all students and they will become very special to you and not just some one you are required to teach.
Among the memorizations for students and facilitators alike in the Baha’i education process we find, “Regard mankind as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable man-kind to benefit there from.”
Through proper spiritual education tutors are more aware of different capacities and therefore are better able to encourage development of each to fullest potential. Whether in specific classroom settings or within regular daily routines, we each and all are teachers-of some child or other individual who admires, or, through some other circumstance, may be thrown in frequent contact with us. The fact that we may be totally oblivious of our influence upon others does not mean we have none.
Therefore during this season of graduations, may we continue to seek higher levels of knowledge in ever widening arenas, but especially in moral standards. May we become more cognizant of the importance of our own actions and reactions that we may better influence the lives of others who so desperately need more models and fewer critics, more beacons of light and fewer judges, and more admirable footprints left in the sands of time for others to follow.
Therefore lets “Beautify our tongues, O people, with truthfulness, and adorn our souls with the ornament of honesty,” as charged in the Baha’I Holy Scriptures. Also “Be fair with yourself and with others that the evidences of justice may be made manifest through our deeds among God’s faithful servants.”
