2.
TRUTH AND WORLD UNITY
BY HORACE HOLLEY
THE chemist who obtains a healing remedy by the combination of elements knows well that he himself has created nothing. He has but made it possible for certain powers inherent in the ingredients to work their beneficent force for the human system. The same elements which, in one combination, will heal disease, may, in a different blending, produce a most destructive explosion. What the chemist brings to his work is knowledge of the elements, but their vital powers and mysterious forces are part of the universal creation which utterly transcends the will of man.
The greatest chemistry of all is that which deals with the union and order of human beings in the state of society. In human beings the Creator has deposited powers and forces which, on the physical plane, represent the highest expression of elemental life, but which, on the mental and spiritual planes, contain attributes raised as high above nature as electricity is raised above other forms of force. History is our record of this most potent chemistry—the laboratory notebook in which is preserved the results of many social experiments, some describing notable successes, others grimly depicting those wars, revolutions and other human explosions by which societies have been utterly destroyed. The ingredient which all experience proves to be essential to the preservation of civilization is mutual loyalty based upon the foundation of divine love. The ingredient invariably leading to social explosion is hate.
So sinister have become the influences making for hatred today that the time has surely come to learn the laws of that spiritual chemistry which determines the outcome of all human relations. The world has become a laboratory in which the very powers of life and death are being manipulated by the ignorant, the evil, and the insane.
The first principle of civilization is that no human being, however weak and lowly, can be regarded as a brute beast and outcast whose fate is a matter of indifference to his fellow men. Even though latent and undeveloped, the attributes of man are divinely created, and the abuse of human-beings involves the sure movements of a guardian destiny. Nor can human association be founded on any social structure admitting or compelling servitude to an arbitrary authority or effecting involuntary cooperation among the people.
Great emphasis has been given this fundamental matter of man’s spiritual endowment in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. "Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct evidence of the revelation within it of the attributes and names of God, inasmuch as within every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent testimony to the revelation of that Most Great Light. . . . To a supreme degree is this true of man, who, among all created beings, hath been invested with the robe of such gifts, and hath been singled out for the glory of such distinction. For in him are potentially revealed all the attributes and names of God to a degree that no other created being hath excelled or surpassed. . . . Man, the noblest and most perfect of all created things, excelleth them all in the intensity of this revelation, and is a fuller expression of its glory.”1
In the light of this truth, it seems evident that altogether too much power is attributed to those human organizations which employ material might and ruthless coercion to attain their ends. At their very root lies a blight which sooner or later must carry death and disintegration to their branches, their twigs and their leaves. The following quotation indicates how fruitless are the
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1Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh.
[Page 777]
efforts to establish
the association of men on
any other than a basis of spiritual truth:
"Economic distress . . . together with
political confusion, financial
upheavals, religious restlessness and
racial animosities,
seem to have conspired to add immeasurably
to the burdens under which an impoverished,
a war-weary world is groaning. Such has
been the cumulative effect of these crises,
following one another with such
bewildering rapidity, that the
very foundations of
society are trembling. The world,
to whichever continent we turn our gaze . . . is
everywhere assailed by forces it
can neither
explain nor control. . . . Humanity, whether
viewed in the light of man’s
individual conduct or of the existing
relationships between
organized communities and nations, has,
alas, strayed too far and suffered too great
a decline to be redeemed through
the unaided efforts of the best among
its recognized
rulers and statesmen—however disinterested
their motives, however concerted
their action, however unsparing in
their zeal and
devotion to its cause. No scheme which the
calculations of the highest statesmanship
may yet devise; no doctrine which the most
distinguished exponents of economic theory
may hope to advance; no principle which the
most ardent of moralists may strive to
inculcate, can provide, in the last
resort, adequate foundations upon
which the future
of a distracted world can be built.”2
If social policy, devoid of the higher powers of love, and consequently incapable of inspiring unity and cooperation, can not construct a true civilization, then has once and for all been demonstrated the vitality of our aspiration after truth. For it is evident that the inherent nature of truth as law, apart from mere opinion, is that law must be obeyed. We determine whether a given principle is law or mere opinion in two ways: by the reward that comes from obedience, and by the penalty involved in disobedience. Applying this test to present-day civilization, no argument is needed to prove that the entire world staggers under severe blows and suffers under a dire punishment that can not be attributed to any human power or source. It is the divine power of truth and love which has been left outside our social theories and overlooked-as the essential ingredient in the life of man.
And yet this organized hatred appears to be so invincible, with its armaments hurling death from land, from sea, from air! What forest can resist the devouring flame that grows what it feeds on? Here, indeed, we stand in need of a faith so firm and so assured that it can gaze clear-eyed upon this tragic array of destructive material power, and realize that it is impotent in comparison to truth. We need that conscious, that understanding faith which knows, and knows once for all, that hatred is not a positive force, an independent reality, but only the negative absence of love. Those who are lost in darkness fear the darkness and think it is an active evil, but darkness becomes nothing when light appears.
The Bahá’í writings contain a passage which at this hour should be proclaimed to the far corners of the earth. This passage describes how the light of spiritual truth is arising in our age to banish hatred and fear from the souls of men.
“In cycles gone by, though harmony was established, yet, owing to the absence of means, the unity of all mankind could not have been achieved. Continents remained widely divided, nay even among the people of one and the same continent, association and interchange of thought were well nigh impossible. Consequently, intercourse, understanding and unity amongst all the peoples and kindreds of the earth were unattainable. In this day, however, means of communication have multiplied, and the five continents of the earth have virtually merged into one. . . . In like manner, all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent. For none is self-sufficiency any longer possible, inasmuch as political ties unite all peoples and nations, and the bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of all mankind can in this day be achieved. Verily this is none other but one of the wonders of this wondrous age, this glorious century. Of this, past ages have been deprived, for this century—the century of light—has been
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2Shoghi Effendi: The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
[Page 778]
endowed with unique
and unprecedented
glory, power and illumination. . . .
"Behold how its light is now dawning upon the world’s darkened horizon. The first candle is unity in the political realm, the early glimmerings of which can now be discerned. The second candle is unity of thought in world undertakings, the consummation of which will ere long be witnessed. The third candle is unity in freedom which will surely come to pass. The fourth candle is unity in religion which is the cornerstone of the foundation itself, and which, by the power of God, will be revealed in all its splendor. The fifth candle is unity of nations—a unity which in this century will be securely established, causing all the peoples of the world to regard themselves as citizens of one common fatherland. The sixth candle is unity of races, making of all that dwell on earth peoples and kindreds of one race. The seventh candle is unity of language, that is, the choice of a universal tongue in which all peoples will be instructed and converse. Each and every one of these will inevitably come to pass, inasmuch as the power of the Kingdom of God will aid and assist in their realization.”3
The first principle of civilization has already been described as recognition of the spiritual nature of man. The second principle is recognition of the truth that a human society capable of solving its problems is no mere casual or artificial grouping of a large number of human beings, but the reflection and outworking of a creative spirit. A civilization which has come to its decline, and entered its death-struggle, abandons all its external and materialistic trappings of false faith, and reaches up for a faith that is pure and sanctified from the stains of historical prejudice. When such a renewal of faith can be found, it releases the spirit by which a new and higher civilization can be gradually attained. The spirit that moves the minds and hearts today is a world spirit. Its necessary creation is a world society, and the path leading to that world society is the sincere acceptance of the oneness of mankind.
We of today live in a transitional age, the “forty years of wilderness” that lie between the old world and the new. The part each man plays is determined by whether he looks forward or backward, whether he responds to materialism or spirituality, whether he is slave to the darkness or the servant of the light. As has been so poignantly expressed: "The whole of mankind is groaning, is dying to be led to unity, and to terminate its age-long martyrdom. And yet it stubbornly refuses to embrace the light and acknowledge the sovereign authority of the one Power that can extricate it from its entanglements, and avert the woeful calamity that threatens to engulf it.”4
There appear to be three distinct periods in this new stage of world unity; first, that in which the need of the larger unity is denied and resisted; second, that when the need of unity is admitted, but substitutes for the true, organic unity are attempted; and third, the hour when all resistance and subterfuge are abandoned, and the spirit of unity is at last awakened among men. We have already passed through the first of these periods. At present we are still depending upon incomplete measures and half-hearted efforts. The signs are not lacking, however, that many individuals have begun to respond to the new world spirit, and are spiritually ready to serve its universal aim. For such, these words of Bahá’u’lláh will bring abundant confirmation: "Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.”5
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3 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets. Quoted in The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
4Shoghi Effendi: The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
5 Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh..
