Inspiration
All humans are the limbs of the same body, created
from one essence.
If the calamity of time afflicts one limb
the others cannot stay at rest.
You, who remain indifferent to the suffering of others
do no deserve to be called human.–Saadi Shirazi (as translated by my dear Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, heard on TVO’s Big Ideas podcast)
0 thoughts on “Inspiration”
Sounds like he may have been paraphrasing from the book The Secret of Divine Civilization. There’s a similar statement in the section on justice. Here’s the excerpt, and you can read the whole book at:
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/SDC/
“The second attribute of perfection is justice and impartiality. This means to have no regard for one’s own personal benefits and selfish advantages, and to carry out the laws of God without the slightest concern for anything else. It means to see one’s self as only one of the servants of God, the All-Possessing, and except for aspiring to spiritual distinction, never attempting to be singled out from the others. It means to consider the welfare of the community as one’s own. It means, in brief, to regard humanity as a single individual, and one’s own self as a member of that corporeal form, and to know of a certainty that if pain or injury afflicts any member of that body, it must inevitably result in suffering for all the rest.”
(Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 39)