Press on steadily, keep to the straight road in your thinking and doing, and your days will flow on smoothly. The soul of man, like the souls of all rational creatures, has two things in common with the soul of God: it can never ben thwarted from without, and its good consists in righteousness of character and action, and in confining every wish thereto.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Five
During the year on this blog that I devoted to reflections on faith I noted, way too many times, the fact that in the Quran the essential concepts of faith and righteous deeds are linked over fifty times. For example, Surah 103: "By the declining day humanity is a state of failure, with the exception of those who believe, perform righteous deeds, and enjoin each other to truth and patience." This has always been one of my favorite surahs because, while we can't understand the divine, we can, to be the best of our abilities, focus our attentions on those four concepts. Cycling back to faith and righteous deeds, I would propose that they are naturally linked; essentially, I would argue that we most clearly practice faith when we're devoting our time to the small kindnesses that we should direct towards all living beings. I'm making this point because it is so remarkably similar to what Marcus Aurelius is saying in the Meditations. Of course, I suppose all religions and philosophies say something similar, or at least they should.
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