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.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of addressing both physical and spiritual causes of illness for effective healing.
Abdu'L-Bah highlights the dual nature of human afflictions, suggesting that physical ailments require medical intervention while those stemming from spiritual or emotional distress may be better addressed through spiritual practices. The quote advocates for a holistic approach to health, recognizing that both medical and spiritual treatments can complement each other rather than being seen as opposing forces.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about holistic healthcare approaches, this quote can illustrate the importance of integrating physical and spiritual treatments.
More from Abdu'L-Bah
All quotes →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.
The primary, the most urgent requirement is the promotion of education. It is inconceivable that any nation should achieve prosperity and success unless this paramount, this fundamental concern is carried forward. The principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples is ignorance. Today the mass of the people are uninformed even as to ordinary affairs, how much less do they grasp the core of the important problems and complex needs of the time.
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