On the Ego, the Insistent Self: If evil has a name

Always a good reminder. -gw

If evil has a name, it is surely the deliberate violation of the hard-won covenants of peace and reconciliation by which people of goodwill seek to escape the past and to build together a new future. By its very nature, unity requires self-sacrifice. “…self-love”, the Master states, “is kneaded into the very clay of man.” The ego, termed by Him the “insistent self”, resists instinctively constraints imposed on what it conceives to be its freedom. To willingly forgo the satisfactions that licence affords, the individual must come to believe that fulfilment lies elsewhere. Ultimately, it lies, as it has always done, in the soul’s submission to God.

One Common Faith
Author: Bahá’í World Centre
Source: Bahá’í World Centre, 2005 edition
Page: p. 47

"One Common Faith class photo"

Uploaded on January 1, 2006 by Man United on flickr

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