ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Ethics and Spiritual Growth Chapter 6: The basis of Social Co-operation The delicate feelings and emotions that illuminate the panorama of life in the form of various forms of kindness, help and assistance to one's fellow beings belong to the most sublime of human motives.

It is this feeling that intensely affects the human heart on witnessing the sufferings, hardships and afflictions of others and prepares it for all kinds of self-sacrifice and self-denial. It is an undeniable fact that pleasure and pain, suffering and joy, poverty and prosperity are an inalienable part of man's life.

But fortunately many of these sufferings, misfortunes, and afflictions, with all the bitterness and burden they entail, are remediable, and their causes, which blacken the horizon of the lives of the afflicted, like dark and inauspicious clouds, can be cleared with mutual assistance. Man is not merely a living organism but the bearer of the universal message of goodness, wisdom, beauty, and human worthiness.

The mutual relations of human beings with one another should be based on sincere reciprocal sympathy, love and co-cooperativeness, not on the basis of ostentation, expedience and a businesslike attitude. The solution of life's problems is impossible without forgiveness, sacrifice, and kindness to fellowmen in critical moments, for sympathy, self-sacrifice and mutual forgiveness are among the pillars of the edifice of social life, which is based on co-operation.

Those, individuals or groups, who have such a spirit in social conduct attain to their full maturity. Those who have concern for life should, in the first place, render it service and play a dear and definite role in the creation of a strong and healthy society. The higher the degree of emotional maturity of persons and the more developed their social outlook, the more will they be attentive to one another's interests.

A positive and sympathetic thinking about others, as a mark of developed humanity, will help create a wholesome environment for a better life for the individual. The social sciences prove that true self-interest involves concern for others, co-cooperativeness, and sympathy. There is a saying which says, "You receive with the same hand that you give." How can one who does not sow the seeds of benevolence reap the fruit of kindness?