If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of finding happiness in the present moment, particularly during festive seasons.
Abdu'L-Bah's quote suggests that the essence of happiness is rooted in our current experiences rather than in future expectations. It calls us to appreciate the joy of the present season, implying that waiting for a more convenient or suitable time to be happy is futile, as we might never find that perfect moment if we do not cherish the one we are in.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a holiday gathering to reflect on the importance of joy in the moment.
Illnesses which occur because of physical causes should be treated by doctors with medical remedies; those which are due to spiritual causes disappear through spiritual means. Thus an illness caused by affliction, fear, nervous impressions, will be healed more effectively by spiritual rather than physical treatment. Hence, both kinds of treatment should be followed; they are not contradictory.
If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men.
Love gives life to the lifeless. Love lights a flame in the heart that is cold. Love brings hope to the hopeless and gladdens the hearts of the sorrowful. In the world of existence there is indeed no greater power than the power of love
The wisdom of the appearance of the spirit in the body is this: the human spirit is a Divine Trust, and it must traverse all conditions, for its passage and movement through the conditions of existence will be the means of its acquiring perfections.
Truthfulness is the foundation of all the virtues of mankind
The confirmations of the Spirit are all those powers and gifts which some are born with (and which men sometimes call genius), but for which others have to strive with infinite pains. They come to that man or woman who accepts his life with radiant acquiescence.
Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition. Your qualifications are not your life.
Thus the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.
Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.
I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain.
What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss - absolute bliss - as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle into every finger and toe?
More choice doesn't make us happy, and we understand that no one has infinite choices about how to live life.
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