{"id":4,"date":"2010-12-01T17:12:51","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T17:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/?p=4"},"modified":"2010-12-01T17:16:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T17:16:00","slug":"what-are-we-doing-here-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/?p=4","title":{"rendered":"What Are We Doing Here, Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Sooner or later during the struggle for existence in the physical world, and individual comes to realize that human life consists of more than the sensory experiences of the animal which is constrained by its material requirements.\u00a0 Human beings can step beyond the bounds of nature and master it.\u00a0 They are endowed with capacities that establish learning, culture and civilization — capacities that incline them toward perception of a transcendent, a spiritual realm.\u00a0 It is in perfecting these spiritual qualities and manifesting them in action that the purpose of human life is achieved.<\/em><\/p>\n

…When ignorant of their true spiritual reality, human beings are inclined toward indulgence of their physical needs.\u00a0 Man then falls lower than an animal as the powers and capacities of the mind and spirit become grounded in selfish desires.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Baha’u’llah’s Teachings on Spiritual Reality<\/em><\/p>\n

“That’s just human nature.”\u00a0 We hear this often, usually as an excuse for some\u00a0 sad, selfish, and\/or tragic act.\u00a0 But what if we’re misinformed about our nature?\u00a0 And why, when we see evidences of the beauty and compassion of the human spirit, do we not justify those as “human nature” as well?\u00a0 In order to effectively move forward as individuals and as communities, we need to have an increasingly accurate understanding of who we are and what we’re doing here.<\/p>\n

There’s a general sense of what we can do to advance ourselves individually – prayer, meditation, bringing our behavior in line with our ideals, being of service to others.\u00a0 But “collectively”, what does that look like?\u00a0 I believe education serves a critical role in our collective endeavor to advance civilization materially, as well as spiritually.\u00a0 How can we create “centers of learning” that facilitate the strengthening of our human capacities and the ability to effectively bring those to bear on the world?\u00a0 It is my hope that Kamal Academy can serve as one such center of learning.\u00a0 I invite you to join in its creation and evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Sooner or later during the struggle for existence in the physical world, and individual comes to realize that human life consists of more than the sensory experiences of the animal which is constrained by its material requirements.\u00a0 Human beings can step beyond the bounds of nature and master it.\u00a0 They are endowed with capacities that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamalacademy.org\/edblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}