On Failure to Thrive As a Baha'i: Casting Out "The Stranger"

http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/growthcharts/

The first few years of life are a time when most children gain weight and grow much more rapidly than they will later on. Sometimes, however, babies and children don't meet expected standards of growth. Although most of these children follow growth patterns that are variations of normal, others are considered to have "failure to thrive." ...

Although it's been recognized for more than a century, failure to thrive lacks a precise definition, in part because it describes a condition rather than a specific disease. Children who fail to thrive don't receive or are unable to take in, retain, or utilize the calories needed to gain weight and grow as expected.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/nutrition_fit/nutrition/failure_thrive.html

There is a spiritual equivalent of failure to thrive. Adib Taherzadeh describes it. -gw

A statement in Islam, which Baha'u'llah confirms and reiterates, says that 'Knowledge is a light which God casteth into the heart of whomsoever he willeth.' The assertion that the heart is the dawning-place of the knowledge of God may sound strange to some because it is commonly thought that the mind, rather than the heart, is the vehicle for acquiring knowledge. But faith and knowledge of God, like seeds, are planted first in the heart. It is only afterwards that the mind grasps the truth and begins to understand it. In the end it is the interaction of the two - the heart and the mind - that brings confirmation and certitude to the soul.

Although in some cases a believer's faith in Baha'u'llah may come to him intellectually, its intensification and growth day by day cannot continue purely through intellectual pursuits. And if a person's faith does not increase with the passage of time, it is like a child who is born but who fails to grow. Such a person is very likely to feel a measure of doubt in his innermost heart concerning the Faith and may experience great conflicts in his mind, especially when he goes through tests. Although intellectually he may accept Baha'u'llah as a Manifestation of God and may even be well versed in His writings, he does not have that asolute certitude that endows a human being with spiritual qualities and confers upon him perpetual contentment, assurance and happiness. ...

Uploaded on May 21, 2006 by Thomas Hawk on flickr

To acquire faith, then, and to enable the revelation of God to shine within the heart, one must cast out the 'stranger', or man's attachment to the world, of which the most formidable and most harmful type is attachment to one's own self. It manifests itself mainly in pride in one's own knowledge and other accomplishments, such as rank and station. Love of one's self renders the individual opinionated, self-centered, proud and egotistical and, in fact, denudes him of spiritual qualities.

Adib Taherzadeh, The Child of the Covenant, pp. 404-405.