Bahá’í World/Volume 9/The Importance of the Bahá’í Faith Today
22.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH TODAY
BY GEORGE W. GOODMAN
A Prophecy Fulfilled
"The promised day is come, the day when tormenting trials will have surged above your heads, and beneath your feet, saying, taste ye what your hands have wrought. Soon shall the blasts of His chastisement, beat upon you, and the dust of hell enshroud you.”
"Soon will the present day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.”
Never before in the history of the world has a prophecy such as the above, made by His Holiness the ‘Abhá Beauty, Bahá’u’lláh, come more manifestly true than in our present age. All about us are the manifestations of the great world upheaval that He bespoke.
If I did not feel peculiarly blessed to be living in this remarkable age and disproportionately favored in having found this great faith, I would never have the temerity to discuss its importance to us today. But glory to God in the highest that I have been spared to live long enough to receive this great blessing.
The Problem
It is always extremely difficult to convey the importance of religion to the average mind. Much of this difficulty is involved in the fact that religion has too often been shrouded in mysticism and remote promises that do not seem to be a part of reality to the average individual. To this very inadequate person it seems that these factors have induced religious leaders to fall back more and more upon fear and rituals to hold the people. But in reality this practice has added more confusion and no end of skepticism. Until at last religion has been reduced to a mere agency of death, rather than a stimulus to godly living.
But mind you, this unfortunate state of affairs has only come to pass because of the progressive resistance and opposition of religious leaders to the wisdom expressed in the Bahá’í teachings in the following words:
"But, O my brother when a true seeker determines to take the step of search in the path leading to the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must before all else, cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of satanic fancy.”
The last few words of that great utterance embody practically all of the ills that this old world is experiencing today. For the must and dust of acquired knowledge are stifling mankind to death in our present civilization. No better proof of this than in the peculiar happenings in the past twenty-five years, during which time we have witnessed the rise of nationalism and economic self-sufficiency. To express it more simply, during that time we developed a type of economic hysteria. We made people believe that economic self-sufficiency was our only God and goal. Here was the unique example of transforming a mere mechanical device from the realm of a conveyance to that of an ideal and an end in itself. We were to rise to godliness in proportion as we attained economic security, comfort, and happiness. In other words we were extracting the soul out of living and replacing it with a mechanical device called economics. But our unhappy mistake was the lack of appreciation that all mankind perishes the moment the soul is gone.
However, we went merrily on our way to
sublimate and eventually eliminate all
considerations of morality in a system where
real virtue was measured in terms of
material accumulations. Therefore everything
[Page 875]
that was considered suggestive of a high
moral basis was immediately termed impractical
or declared intolerable. This procedure ruined
nations, states, cities, and
finally individual personalities because it
destroyed all the basic discriminatory
qualities. But while this was going on, on the
one hand, on the other we were witnessing
the development of Frankensteins within
certain nations, whose only god was power.
At last we arrived at the day when civilization, soft, decayed and relaxed, resembled a great ghost city; the moment its last inhabitants scampered away in fear, at that very moment, the brambles and entangling underbrushes of barbarity began to encroach upon its confines.
That is not a pretty picture, but it is exactly the one that is conveyed as you stand in the midst of the blood and chaos all about us today and meditate upon the activities that have brought the whole world to its present plight. Man is frankly dazed with the din and confusion all about him; no nation trusts the other; there are already signs of future alliances and oppositions; leaders are in mortal fear of the war’s conclusion before they can select a leader or make plans. And, worst of all, millions of people who fight, have not yet clarified in their minds what they are fighting for, except the fact that they do not want to be enslaved.
We Bahá’ís do not rejoice at this great world calamity, or stoop to the undignified position of exclaiming, "We told you so.” On the other hand we weep with great grief and anguish at the terrible spiritual blindness of the children of men. For, though we know that there will be additional suffering and anguish leading to the Lesser and finally the Most Great Peace, we pray most earnestly the prayer for guidance that says:
“O my God! There is no refuge save Thee, and there is no pathway but leads to Thine Abode. When Thy people lean to Thee, O God, they will not leave Thy way. Help them to remain constant and faithful while in their journey to Thee, so they may reach Thy kingdom and attain Thy will.”
The Glory of the Faith
The Bahá’í Faith today is the only reliable, clearcut path to world peace and stabilization. It offers what this deathly ill civilization must have, if it is to be the foundation upon which the Lesser Peace is to be founded. It holds the stimulus to revitalize our moral objectives, through a fervent revival of our faith in God. This revitalization can come only through a forthright investigation of truth that will enable man to plow his way through antiquated customs and prejudices; an acknowledgment of the oneness of mankind; religious unity; equalization of sexes; a developing accord between religion and science; a developing economic solution on a spiritual basis; the creation of a universal language; universal education; making religion a cause of love; and the establishment of an international tribunal with power to maintain peace throughout the world.
We Bahá’ís are blessed to be living in such a marvelous era and to be endowed with such clarity of vision, but we are exceedingly responsible for the hastening of the day when these things shall come to pass for all mankind. Thus it becomes quite apparent that there is no greater honor and distinction in the world today, than that of being a Bahá’í . . . and likewise there is no greater responsibility. God grant that we may all interpret this responsibility as meaning a charge to spread the remarkable beneficence of God in this dispensation, through our great faith. And in doing this, we raise religion from the degradation of being purely an agency for death to the exalted plane of a stimulus for godly living. This and this alone represents the great importance of the Bahá’í faith today.