"Live in society, earn your livelihood, and maintain your health, but strengthen and develop your soul to the point that, like a solid tree, nothing can shake you."
-Ostad Elahi
"The intellectual method of spirituality...is completely new and is the result of the spiritual experiences of Ostad Elahi (1895-1974). For the first third of his life, Ostad experimented with classical mysticism (the sensorial method) and was able to dominate all of his imperious desires through difficult ascetic practices that lasted for twelve consecutive years. During this time, practically in full retreat from the world and absorbed in divine love, he devoted the vast majority of his time to spiritual discoveries and meditative contemplation, and thus advanced as far as the sensorial method could take him. Ostad would later recall this period as the happiest in his life:
'When I look at pictures from my youth, a special feeling overcomes me as I remember the exalted state I was in. The world and everything in it meant nothing to me. I was in such spiritual exaltation that even thinking about it now still moves me.'
Around the age 25, Ostad ended his seclusion and gradually began moving in a direction opposite to that of classical mysticism. Determining that life in society was a more suitable environment for spiritual development due to its numerous challenges and temptations, he entered society and began a career in the judiciary. It quickly became apparent that the richness of this new approach to spirituality was incomparable to his previous experience. Ostad concluded that it was by confronting the tests of life in society with the help of a strong will that human beings could develop their celestial reason (spiritual intellect):
'Before I entered government service, I was unaware that all my prayers and twelve years of asceticism on the mystical path had the same spiritual value as a single year working in the government. Each of the years spent in public service, often in sensitive positions where I could have erred at any moment, was equal in vaue to those twelve years of asceticism. It is because of this principle that I say: live in society, earn your livelihood, and maintain your health, but strengthen and develop your soul to the point that, like a solid tree, nothing can shake you.'
Therefore it is with the help of celestial reason and willpower that we can dominate our imperious desires and temptations, not through difficult ascetic practices."
(From "Medicine of the Soul" by Bahram Elahi, M.D.)
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