freedom – a place in your head.

I was talking to friend yesterday and we had quite a big discussion about my opinions on justice in the world. Obviously I believe a lot of injustice does take place and I criticize that in this blog quite a bit I think. My friend believed (…and I think this is an opinion of very many youth in my generation) that the injustice and inequality in the world is evidence for non-existance of God, or for a God that “doesn’t care about the planet and has betrayed us”

I understand the difficulty to believe in an All-Powerful God, when a child dies every three seconds. Any person with a sense of justice feels there stomach knot together when he reads or sees on television how immense the amount of poverty still is in the world.

But I personally believe that the root of all the issues in the world are man-made. If children are starving in other parts of the world, then it is because of our ignorance. If wars are still taking place, it’s because the peaceful countries have not been able to withstand trouble-making ones. If other countries aren’t developing as we are, then it’s because we have submitted and are too egoistic. We hazard the consequences that we have excess of food and luxury. And if all these problems are man-made, then they cannot be beyond humanity to fix them.

Apart from those, there are the personal problems all people have everyday . These are tests and if trying to be a good person in our society payed off straight away, then what would be the value of it? If it was easier to act altruistically than egoistically, it would still be kind of egoistic I think. The action wouldn’t be worth as much.

Abdu’l-Bahá spent many years in exile and 40 years(!) imprisoned with horrific circumstances. When Isabel Fraser once told him she was glad he was free again, he answered:

“Freedom is not a matter of place. It is a condition. I was thankful for the prison, and the lack of liberty was very pleasing to me, for those days were passed in the path of service, under the utmost difficulties and trials, bearing fruits and results.
Unless one accepts dire vicissitudes, he will not attain. To me prison is freedom, troubles rest me, death is life, and to be despised is honour. Therefore, I was happy all that time in prison. When one is released from the prison of self, that is indeed release, for that is the greater prison [...] The afflictions which come to humanity sometimes tend to centre the consciousness upon the limitations, and this is a veritable prison. Release comes by making of the will a Door through which the confirmations of the Spirit come.”