Such a chaste and holy life, with its implications of
modesty, purity, temperance, decency, and clean-mindedness, involves no less
than the exercise of moderation in all that pertains to dress, language,
amusements, and all artistic and literary avocations. It demands daily
vigilance in the control of one's carnal desires and corrupt inclinations. It
calls for the abandonment of a frivolous conduct, with its excessive attachment
to trivial and often misdirected pleasures. It requires total abstinence from
all alcoholic drinks, from opium, and from similar habit-forming drugs. It
condemns the prostitution of art and of literature, the practices of nudism and
of companionate marriage, infidelity in marital relationships, and all manner
of promiscuity, of easy familiarity, and of sexual vices....
- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Advent of Divine Justice’; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, A
Chase and Holy Life)
