This second session of the True Self series deals with one of “life’s big questions”: Is it possible to lead a spirit-centered life without completely abandoning material pleasures, needs and responsibilities?

A select transcript extracted from this audio session is as follows:

“Sometime when we pause to reflect on our life, despite all our achievements and successes there is still some emptiness inside us. It feels like a mysterious void within our soul. We don’t like it. We feel depressed by it. We try to distract ourselves away from it. We may even succeed in masking it for a while, avoiding its intense feeling. We may try to suppress it by medicating ourselves but when the medication wears off the emptiness comes back more intensely than before.

What is this mysterious feeling? Where does it come from?...

Baha’u’llah’s paradigm...does not forbid acquisition of wealth or material prosperity, what it does teach is awareness and consciousness of living a life that is not dictated by the overarching desire to amass wealth beyond moderation….

‘Some men’s lives are solely occupied with the things of this world; their minds are so circumscribed by exterior manners and traditional interests that they are blind to any other realm of existence, to the spiritual significance of all things! They think and dream of earthly fame, of material progress. Sensuous delights and comfortable surroundings bound their horizon, their highest ambitions centre in successes of worldly conditions and circumstances….’

‘Life is a load which must be carried on while we are on earth, but the cares of the lower things of life should not be allowed to monopolize all the thoughts and aspirations of a human being.’…”