Respect and Consideration…

Respect and Consideration

All the Prophets and Manifestations taught us to develop virtues here in the spirit kindergarten of earthly life. We will need these virtues in the next world, like we needed to develop limbs and eyes in the world of the womb – even though it might not have been fully clear why, at the time.

No matter what Faith you profess, or if you commune with God in an aspen meadow, you know the comfort and warmth of the love of God, Allah or any other name. As you feel filled with that love, you know you must share it with other beings; whether they be plants, animals, people; or even the earth, rocks, and sky.

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”  ~Bryan H McGill

 

“Knowledge gives you power, but character respect.” ~Bruce Lee

 

“The blood that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.”  ~Richard Bach

 

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.”
~Laurence Sterne

 

It is not only their fellow human beings that the beloved of God must treat with mercy and compassion, rather must they show forth the utmost loving-kindness to every living creature. For in all physical respects, and where the animal spirit is concerned, the selfsame feelings are shared by animal and man. Man hath not grasped this truth, however, and he believeth that physical sensations are confined to human beings.

Wherefore is he unjust to the animals, and cruel? And yet in truth, what difference is there when it comes to physical sensations? The feelings are one and the same, whether ye inflict pain on man or on beast. There is no difference here, whatever. And in deed you do worse to harm an animal, for man hath a language, he can lodge a complaint, he can cry out and moan; if injured he can have recourse to the authorities …

But the hapless beast is mute, able neither to express its hurt or take its case to the authorities … Therefore, it is essential that ye show forth the utmost consideration to the animal, and that ye be even kinder to him than to your fellow man. Train your children from their earliest days to be infinitely tender and loving to animals. If an animal be sick, let them try to heal it, if it be hungry, let them feed it, if thirsty, let them quench its thirst, if weary let them see that it rest. 
~ ‘Abdu’l Baha

Author/Writer, Diana Olsen