Fluctuating weather patters and the budding of forsythia and japonica bushes, like the proverbial robin, are all official harbingers of Spring! It also generates a spirit of rejuvenation, new life and new hope, unparalleled at any other season.
“If a new Springtime failed to appear, the earth would become desolate and life extinct for with it comes the cleaning away of dead and other accumulated debris from the past,” reads a passage from the Baha’i Holy Scriptures for this New Day. There from derives the common thought of Spring cleaning when the urge to follow nature’s lead is most prevalent.
There is also the dire need for Spring cleaning in the world of the minds and morals of men, so adversely affected by the perpetual poisoning and demoralization of society from earliest age through technological advancement(?) of all facets of the media. This represents but a tiny fraction of all the right discoveries through time and technology being used for all the wrong reasons. As the character of any community, state or nation can never be better than the individuals who comprise it, it would behoove each of us to seriously engage in personal spring cleaning of the debris of those actions and attitudes that impede our mental and spiritual progress. It requires daily prayers and meditation, reinforced by deliberate supportive actions!
For many decades I attempted to perfect what I termed “the art of hating without hurting,” only to finally come to grips with the fact, there is no such thing! Coupling this with the realization that hate is the primary “acid that does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than to the objects on which it is poured,” I was finally able to put new impetus into purifying myself of that poison as, “Love and hate cannot abide in the same abode,” we are assured in the Baha’i Holy Writings.
In applying the Baha’i Prayer, “O God, refresh and gladden my spirit, purify my heart, illumine my powers; I lay all my affairs in Thy hands…” I was challenged by a dear Baha’i friend, “Do you know what you’re praying?” Purification is a painful process.
My mind immediately soared to the purification process I used weekly when publishing The Tribune before computers when the hot medal used to set the type had to be reused by dumping it into a pot and heating it to liquifying degrees when the dirt and dross could be skimmed off and the medal glittered pure and stainless.
“O friends! This century is verily the Spring season!” When the intellectual world and the world of the soul can become verdant, resuscitating the very world of existence; the Day when international peace, like in Springtime, can flood the entire earth with its light!
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