Spiritual education is humanity’s panacea for its present widespread culture of selfishness, violence and negativity, yet the words spiritual education might make the reader’s eyes glaze over. Simply put, it is one of the lessons one learns as a child, in the simple words and practice of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. These words imply learning the meaning of respect for others. Spiritual education is the learning of principles and virtues such as truthfulness, kindness, honesty, forgiveness, justice, courage, love, humility, patience, understanding, open-mindedness, and so forth that can be viewed as the building blocks of the tree of character within a person. The education people usually experience is learning the skills and knowledge of the physical world-the arts, the sciences, history, etc. Why both are essential is the next question. Life’s journey is the purposeful, continual, learning of both modes of education, in order to base one’s thoughts and actions on spiritual principle in service to the betterment of the life of humanity. The Universal House of Justice explains: “… it is important to reflect on the very complex arena in which man plays out the drama of his existence. There are a number of elements involved. For example, man is a spiritual being located within the material creation; hence he is subjected to opposing forces, and has to live in accordance with values which refer to two worlds, the material world with all its imperfections and the spiritual world with its perfections. Tension derives from the fact that “In man there are two natures; his spiritual or higher nature and his material or lower nature. In one he approaches God, in the other he lives for the world alone.” Man’s actions then have both a material and spiritual consequence. While the material effect of his actions is usually clearly perceptible, their spiritual effect can only be determined by reference to spiritual principles revealed by the Manifestation of God.” Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “The purpose of God…in revealing Himself unto men is to lay bare those gems that lie hidden within the mine of their true and inmost selves…” Those gems are only revealed by their burnishing and usage in the physical world.
The why, is “that spiritual education is the light of the world of humanity and that its absence in the world is darkness itself.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá This absence is the source of selfishness, conceit, injustice, and so forth. Abdu’l-Bahá states: “As for the spiritual perfections, they are man’s birthright and belong to him alone of all creation. Man is, in reality, a spiritual being, and only when he lives in the spirit is he truly happy.” He wrote that this Cause “belongeth not to the material world”
The House of Justice feels that one of the great challenges facing Bahá’ís everywhere is that of restoring to the peoples of the world an awareness of spiritual reality. Our view of the world is markedly different from that of the mass of mankind, in that we perceive creation to encompass spiritual as well as physical entities, and we regard the purpose of the world in which we now find ourselves to be a vehicle for our spiritual progress. Universal House of Justice