Economic activities, therefore, have been defined as immoral preoccupations, whereas idleness and withdrawal to the caves or the monasteries have been extolled as noble and spiritual. Likewise, extreme forms of a traditional understanding of detachment have called for withdrawal from work and employment into an ascetic lifestyle. Nietzsche’s devastating critique of religion, for example, mostly grounded itself in defining religion as the assertion of the opposition between this world and other world – denying any value for the former and sacrificing it for the latter. The underlying assumption of these ideas arises from the fundamental opposition between the material world and the spiritual world.
Many religious traditions have turned the idea of detachment into a rejection of this world, reducing it to an evil material entity, and calling for withdrawal from it into cloistered or hermitic lives of self-abnegation. Traditionally, the concept of detachment has meant a particularly dismissive attitude towards this world and towards work and labor within it. However, Baha’u’llah completely reinterpreted the concept of detachment, investing it with complex and progressive meanings. This same concept is also frequently affirmed in the writings of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah. – Baha’u’llah, The Book of CertitudeĪlmost all mystical and religious traditions call people to become detached from the material world and focus on God and the spiritual realm. Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world, that haply ye may attain that station which God hath destined for you. No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth. The writings of Baha’u’llah creatively redefine and reconstruct many widespread cultural concepts – including the traditional spiritual and religious concept of detachment:
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