Bahá’í News/Inserts/Issue 117/That Rarefied Atmosphere/Text

“That Rarefied Atmosphere of Selflessness and Detachment”
Insert to Issue 117 of Baha’i News

“THAT RARIFIED ATMOSPHERE OF SELFLESSNESS AND DETACHMENT”[edit]

To the American Bahá’í Community.

Beloved friends:

Let us consider together dispassionately but devotedly an aspect of our Bahá’í life which over a period of years has by Shoghi Effendi been repeatedly emphasized.

“Again I earnestly appeal to every one of you, and renew my only request with all the ardor of my conviction,” he wrote more than ten years ago, “to make, before and during the coming Convention, yet another effort, this time more spontaneous and selfless than before, and endeavor to approach your task—the election of your delegates, as well as your national and local representatives—with that purity of spirit that can alone obtain our Beloved’s most cherished desire. Let us recall His explicit and often-repeated assurance that every Assembly elected in that rarified atmosphere of selflessness and detachment is, in truth, appointed of God, that its verdict is truly inspired, and that one and all should submit to its decision unreservedly and with cheerfulness.”

Later the Guardian employed this significant phrase: “the elector is called upon to vote for none but those whom prayer and reflection have inspired him to uphold.”

These appeals, these instructions, reveal the spiritual character of the Bahá’í community in its sacred effort to form the nucleus and trace the pattern of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. While our methods resemble those by which political bodies are elected and maintained, the spirit and intention is utterly different. Every individual believer is expected to arise to a higher realm in his or her passionate devotion to the Faith in these, its days of infancy and tender growth.

Whenever, therefore, the element of electioneering enters the life of the Bahá’í community, its effect is prostrating and harmful until by their loyalty and their courage the believers, with the aid of their administrative institutions, overcome such a negative condition through the positive force of unity and understanding. Aside from the consideration that electioneering involves denial of the elector’s right, aside also from the undoubted fact that it seeks influence unduly for or against individuals in the election, the most important and grievous aspect of the matter is that it involves the integrity of the Bahá’í institution itself. Nothing could be more serious in this Formative Period than efforts to transform the character of the organic Bahá’í institutions by surrounding them with a political atmosphere. The task they are called upon to perform cannot be accomplished without the sustaining and guiding power of the Holy Spirit. The present hour in human history is too crucial, the future too dark, for the realization of our collective hopes by any but spiritual intentions.

Indeed, we have likewise these warning words of Shoghi Effendi to point out the sad result of failure to attain the Bahá’í goal: “Should such a representative and responsible body fail to realize this fundamental requisite for all successful achievement, the whole structure is sure to crumble, and the Great Plan of the Future, as unfolded by the Master’s Will and Testament, will be rudely disturbed and grievously delayed.”

At all times, the Bahá’í community stands between the two opposed possibilities of glorious success and lamentable failure. We are not passengers on a ship being passively borne to the goal, but responsible workers, and the pure intention and energetic loyalty of the whole community is required if either local or National Assemblies are to play their part.

That a real deepening of spiritual life is required at this time was revealed to us all by the Guardian’s Cablegram to the Convention, in which he said: “... summoning (to) their aid vitalizing influence prayers meditations which Author their Faith Himself revealed, let them, delegates, visitors alike, draw nigh unto Bahá’u’lláh that He may draw nigh unto them.”

But the subject of electioneering methods is itself but one aspect of the larger problem involved in the attitude which makes for rumor and suspicion within a community consecrated to truth and responsible decision. If that attitude can be removed by spiritual means, the question of electioneering will never arise. The unique importance of prayer and meditation lies in its power to make the soul firm and steadfast, immune to negative suggestion in any form. No administrative action in the form of penalty and punishment can serve as substitute for that immunity within the body of the believers themselves.

Therefore the National Spiritual Assembly, “whose inescapable responsibility is to guard the integrity ... of the entire community,” as Shoghi Effendi stated in his letter of January 30, 1938, wishes to emphasize the spiritual nature and origin of true integrity, and make appeal for a more conscious and widespread realization of what citizenship in the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh means. The power to act through Bahá’í institutions does not consist of the authority vested in those institutions, but of the general power of unity existing among the entire community of believers. That unity is the ultimate source of achievement in all the affairs of the Bahá’í Faith.

If there be any who have offended in the past, let them repent in prayer to Bahá’u’lláh. Let them learn to employ their God-given opportunities to build and not to destroy, to share truth and not to instigate rumors or to seek to conceal personal motives behind a mask of fine words.

The Guardian’s cablegram, quoted above, carries both assurance and warning to every American Bahá’í. His words are to be pondered and cherished in the depths of the heart; and this communication from the National Spiritual Assembly is intended solely as a reminder to all individuals and not made a fresh occasion for rumors concerning personalities.

Yours faithfully,

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY.