The Baha’i faith is big on encouraging believers to live their lives according to certain key virtues: love, justice, equality, tolerance, truthfulness, purity, service.
I like to think of myself as a good person (don’t we all?), even if I do have a few flaws, like impatience and irritability. But am I a virtuous person? Are you? How do we know?
In one book of his writings, Baha’i founder Baha’u’llah spells it right out for us, so here you go:
A Summary of Virtue
Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity.
Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face.
Be a treasure to the poor,
an admonisher to the rich,
an answerer to the cry of the needy,
a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.
Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech.
Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men.
Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness,
a joy to the sorrowful,
a sea for the thirsty,
a haven for the distressed,
an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.
Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.
Be a home for the stranger,
a balm to the suffering,
a tower of strength for the fugitive.
Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring.
Be an ornament to the countenance of truth,
a crown to the brow of fidelity,
a pillar of the temple of righteousness,
a breath of life to the body of mankind,
an ensign of the hosts of justice,
a luminary above the horizon of virtue,
a dew to the soil of the human heart,
an ark on the ocean of knowledge,
a sun in the heaven of bounty,
a gem in the diadem of wisdom,
a shining light in the firmament of thy generation,
a fruit upon the tree of humility.
Got all that?
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