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THIS CAUSE has become world-wide. In a short space of time it has permeated throughout all regions, for it has a magnetic power which attracts all intelligent men and women toward this center. If a person become informed of the reality of this Cause, he will believe in it, for these teachings are the spirit of this age.
The Bahá’í Movement imparts life. It is the cause of love and amity amongst mankind. It establishes communication between various nations and religions. It removes all antagonisms.
The Bahá’í Movement bestows upon man a new spirit, a new light, and a new motion. It enlarges the sphere of thought. It illumines the horizon of the intellect. It expands the arena of comprehension.
This is the ultimate goal of human life. This is the fruit of existence. This is the brilliant pearl of cosmic consciousness. This is the shining star of spiritual destiny.
--PHOTO--
BAHÁ'Í STUDENTS" AT BEIRUT UNIVERSITY
In Beirut University, that American Institution in the Near East which has been of such great service to Syria and the surrounding countries, there have been for a number of years groups of students who follow the Bahá'í Faith.
The principle of religious breadth and tolerance followed by this enlightened institution, has given freedom to the students to meet together as adherents of this Movemment for world peace and brotherhood. In time it became apparent that these youths were universally of beautiful character and spirituality, distinctive for their behavior as students and as men.
One is impressed, in studying this picture, with the character in the faces. These students have endeavored in accordance with the teachings of their religion to make their lives a model of purity, of obedience and of right action, and have been recognized by the authorities of the college as distinguished for these qualities.–(S. C.)
| VOL. 16 | DECEMBER, 1925 | NO. 9 |
Sun of Reality dawned; the day on which all beings were revivified. In the world’s calendar, it was the beginning of a Heavnly Spring.”
THE CHRISTMAS season brings home to us the realization that the greatest gift of God to man is the Divine Teacher or Manifestation sent to lift humanity to higher cultural and spiritual levels. Man’s dependence upon God not only in the daily needs but also in the process of spiritual evolution, we are too apt to overlook in this materialistic age. We think that we are able to direct our own affairs as individuals, or as a world-group; whereas the truth is, that as individuals we are dependent at every breath upon the grace of God; and as constituents of the human race, we have no hope of acquiring the spiritual virtues and of building upon them a lofty civilization, save through the appearance from time to time of God’s Messengers who have a unique and peculiar function to fulfill in the affairs of men.
THE MANIFESTATIONS of God fulfill a dual function: first, to convey to man spiritual truths, principles, and ideals of behavior emanating from the super-world and beyond the capacity of man himself to conceive and imitate; and secondly, to radiate out to contemporaneous humanity spiritual vibrations powerful enough to create new hearts and minds, new spiritual capacities in those who follow Guidance.
The first of these functions, that of bringing new ideals and of establishing new principles of conduct, is well understood by those who study diligently the lives of the Prophets of God.
But the second function of these Messengers, carrying with it a strange heart-compelling power, is so mystic as to be almost beyond description. It is that power by which Christ transformed fishermen into world teachers whose sayings and writings are even today studied with more zeal and with more benefit than the writings of the world’s greatest scholars or philosophers; which transformed Peter from a fiery, impetuous, inconsistent youth to a patient teacher and martyr; while on the contrary it made of the loving and timid John a character firm as rock to endure grave responsibilities and dangers. Slowly enough, it would seem, and yet in reality within a remarkably brief period, Christ was transforming his disciples by this divinely radio-active power so that at his death they were able to go forth and spread, not only his teachings, but also the power of his example.
IT WAS NOT the teachings of the Christ which transformed the world, so much as the example and the dynamic aid toward living these teachings, which also emanated from him. For man has not innately the power to live these new and tremendously high teachings. This capacity and power is conveyed to him
by God through the Channel of a Manifestation.
Every Manifestation during his lifetime is pouring out upon humanity tremendous spiritual rays or vibrations. If one could conceive the world’s history to be run off swiftly on one gigantic film before the inner eye, these periods of the lifetimes of ‘The Manifestations’ would appear in a light more brilliant and dazzling, as superior to the lighting of all other years as the power of the sun is superior to the feeble lights which man himself has invented.
WHAT A BLESSED AGE to live in, the Age of a Manifestation! How small, how infinitesimally small a fraction of this planet’s chronology, has fallen in such periods! And how few, even of those upon earth at such a glorious epoch, have realized the age they were living in, the inestimable privilege granted them by the mere fact of being born in the day of a Manifestation!
Let us try to picture ourselves walking the rapt sunlit fields of Palestine with Jesus. Whence this subtle joy that pervades our hearts, so that our whole being seems set to a vibration as high and yet as still as the movement of a hummingbird's wings, poised above a flower? Is it not a something reaching us from the silent, majestic Friend by our side? Is it not the glow of the Spirit which he is shedding upon us? Of what value is the world's commerce, what one’s profession and one’s daily round, compared to this? All, all, sinks away. Nets are dropped, ships left at anchor, the tax-collector’s duties and opportunities for gain thrown aside, the ordinary, limiting, cobbled roads of man-made towns abandoned for the ecstasy of treading freely the fields of God, with the zephyrs of God’s love circling gently yet powerfully around, and the Friend and Guide lifting us up at every step to more glorious heights of the Spirit, until it is no longer earth we walk upon, but Heaven.
WHAT IS THE purpose and plan of the Friend in this, the giving of his precious time to fishermen and publicans? Is it not to inject, to inspire, to radiate into these souls—who hear the Call and have the capacity to become the chosen ones–the power of the Spirit, the dynamic of God, to such an extent that they, too, after the ascent of the Master, can go forth and live the life and radiate the power of the Holy Spirit, confirming other souls in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and in the apostolic succession?
Thus that flame which forthcame from the heart of God, shall burn and light and kindle the hearts of men adown the centuries, making possible the living of the life, the manifesting of the spiritual qualities, the fulfilling of the laws of God so long as this Dispensation shall last. What a marvelous succession of apostles, of martyrs, of teachers, of saints, bear witness to this flame that Christ kindled in the hearts of men, and that has burned undying on the altar of Christendom, through almost twenty centuries!
UNDYING, but not undiminished! As the power of light diminishes greatly with the distance from its source, so does the power which a religion holds over the hearts of men diminish with the years from those beginning days when a Christ poured out his radiance upon humanity. In the period immediately succeeding a Manifestation the power of the Holy Spirit greatly inspires in ideals, conduct, daily actions of those who sincerely believe. Yet with each generation there is a loss, a diminution in the power. At times the central flame seems almost dying. Then some saint, some God-intoxicated reformer, founds a new sect which starts its existence with a clean new flame and becomes an epitome, in a way, of the history of the larger religion to which it owes its being,—languishing in its turn as the dynamic power of its founder passes through successive generations of believers.
And always–inevitably, one might say—the time comes when that inner power of a great religion, conferred upon humanity by its Founder, so wanes with the passing of the centuries that it no longer enables those who bear the nomenclature of a religion and passively accept its principles to actively live these principles in the daily life. Thus religion, from being a vivid, concrete thing powerfully influencing the conduct of men, becomes an abstraction,—tolerated, praised maybe, but not lived.
THE STRONGEST POWER of a religion is in its early period. At such a time ecstasy, love, self-sacrifice, the spiritual qualities rule the hearts. As the centuries pass by the arts of life advance but spirituality decreases; the glow fades; little by little that light which burst so gloriously upon the fields of earth, awakening men to the spiritual life, dies away in the twilight of irreligion. The precepts, the spiritual principles of the religion, still exist in the very form in which they were written down at its inception. Yet the religion itself has become decrepit and powerless. Therefore it is clear that spiritual principles do not constitute a religion so much as does spiritual living. At this failing stage of a religion, how can humanity be awakened again, resurrected into spiritual living?
The means of this must be the same as that which erstwhile gave such impetus to man’s spiritual life, the sending of a Messenger to the world to breathe again into it the Breath of Life, the power of the_Spirit; to reiterate the spiritual principles by which man should live, and bestow if necessary new laws to definitely guide men in group action.
THIS IS A TRUTH which human thought has ignored in the cherished belief that a religion once revealed has an immortal existence. Truth is immortal, spiritual principles are immortal. But religion as we know it, the organized institution which has become the vehicle for spiritual truth, being human is finite; and being finite is under the laws of beginning and ending, of birth and change and death under which all finite existence operates. Because of ignorance of this law, men in the past, loyal religionists, have bitterly fought the rebirth of religion under a new Manifestation,—as the Jews, devoted to the laws of Moses, rejected Christ. Had they but realized that Christ in no way displaced Moses, that nothing of Truth which Moses gave them would be abrogated, that the authenticity of the new Message was exactly the same as the authenticity of their former Message, namely, the Word of God coming to them through His Holy Messenger,—they would have investigated, have formed conclusions not from prejudice but from the evidence given by the life, the deeds, the spiritual power of their new Messenger, the Christ; and finding the evidence of these perfect, they would have accepted their Messiah and have saved themselves from one of the saddest destinies that can befall an individual, a nation, or a race—that of rejecting a Manifestation of God.
LET US ENLARGE our vision then, and the scope of our love and devotion, at this Christmas Season. Let us be full of gratitude and worship, not only for the Christ whose love and majesty take their toll of worthy adoration from our hearts, but for all the Messengers, past and future, whom God sends to teach us Truth and to breathe into us the Breath of Life, the power of the Spirit—enabling holier living, making us religionists in the necessary dual sense of belief and of action, of acceptance of principles and strength to carry them out in the daily life. God give us not only the Truth, but the power to live that Truth! And the claim of His Messengers must ever be acknowledged by us, that they are—“The Way, The Truth, The Life.”
CHRIST came saying, “I am born of the Holy Spirit.” Though it is now easy for the Christians to believe this assertion, at that time it was very difficult. The text of the Gospel says, “Is not this the son of Joseph of Nazareth whom we know? How can he say, therefore, I came down from heaven?”
Briefly this man, who apparently and in the eyes of all, was lowly, arose with such great power that he abolished a religion that had lasted fifteen hundred years, at a time when the slightest deviation from it exposed the offender to danger or to death. Moreover, in the days of Christ the morals of the whole world and the condition of the Israelites had become completely confused and corrupted, and Israel had fallen into a state of the utmost degradation, misery, and bondage. . . .
This young man, Christ, by the help of a supernatural power, abrogated the ancient Mosaic law, reformed the general morals, and once again laid the foundation of eternal glory for the Israelites. Moreover, he brought to humanity the glad-tidings of universal peace, and spread abroad teachings which were not for Israel alone, but were for the general happiness of the whole human race.
Those who first strove to do away with him were the Israelites and his own kindred. To all outward appearances they overcame him, and brought him into direct distress. At last they crowned him with the crown of thorns and crucified him. But Christ, while apparently in the deepest misery and affliction, proclaimed: “This Sun will be resplendent, this Light will shine, my grace will surround the world, and all my enemies will be brought low.” And as he said, so it was: for all the kings of the earth have not been able to withstand him. Nay, all their standards have been overthrown, whilst the banner of that Oppressed One has been raised to the zenith.
But this is opposed to all the rules of human reason. Then it becomes clear and evident that this Glorious Being was a true Educator of the world of humanity, and that he was helped and confirmed by Divine Power. (Ans. Ques., p. 20.)
THE REALITY of Christ, that is to say the Word of God, is the cause of spiritual life. It is a “quickening spirit,” meaning that all the imperfections which come from the requirements of the physical life of man, are transformed into human perfections by the teachings and education of that spirit. Therefore Christ was a quickening spirit, and the cause of life in all mankind. The position of Christ was that of absolute perfection; he made his divine perfections shine like the sun upon all believing souls, and the bounties of the light shone and radiated in the reality of men. . . . The Reality of Christ was a clear and polished mirror of the greatest purity and fineness, and the Sun of Reality, that is to say, the Essence of Oneness, with its infinite perfections and attributes, became visible in the mirror. . . . The Christ sacrificed himself so that men might be freed from the imperfections of the physical nature, and might become possessed of the virtues of the spiritual nature. This spiritual nature, which came into existence through the bounty of the Divine Reality, is the reunion of all perfections, and appears through the breath of the Holy Spirit; it is the divine perfections, it is light, spirituality, guidance, exaltation, high aspiration, justice, love, grace, kindness to all, philanthropy, the essence of life. It is the reflection of the splendor of the Sun of Reality. . . .
The Holy Manifestations of God are
the Centers of the Light of Reality, of the Source of mysteries, and of the bounties of love. They are resplendent in the world of hearts and thoughts, and shower eternal graces upon the world of spirits; they give spiritual life, and are shining with the light of realities and meanings. The enlightenment of the world of thought comes from these Centers of Light and Sources of mysteries.
After the time of Christ, through the power of the love of God, how many nations, races, families, and tribes came under the shadow of the Word of God: the differences and divisions of a thousand years were entirely destroyed and annihilated. The thoughts of race and of fatherland completely disappeared; the union of souls and of existence took place; all became true spiritual Christians. (Ans. Ques., pp. 13-136, 340.)
WHEN HE (Christ) was on earth, He was not thought much of, notwithstanding they were awaiting His coming with great impatience. They thought that they would be his intimate friends. Some there were who used to cry day and night, saying, “O God, hasten the day when the Promised One will manifest himself on this earth!” When he came, they knew him not; they persecuted him and finally killed him, for they said: “This is not the true Messiah whose coming is to be under special conditions. How is it that he claims to be from Nazareth, the son of Mary? He was to come with a sword; this man does not possess even a staff. He was to sit on the throne of David; this man does not possess a mat to sit on. He must conquer the East and the West; this man does not possess a shelter. He was to teach the law of Moses; this man is abolishing it. In his day, justice was to encircle the world, the wolf and the sheep drink from one fountain; the lion and the deer to graze in one pasture; the vulture and partridge live in one nest.”
The people could not see that these things were taking place. The Reality of Christ was from heaven, though His physical body was from Mary. The sword was the tongue of Christ, which cut right from wrong. Many had swords, but his sword conquered the world.
The Kingdom of Christ was heavenly and not like the kingdom of Bonaparte; it was the reality of the ancient law Christ spread, not the words. He conquered East and West by the Holy Spirit, not by force. Sects which were in the utmost animosity drank from the one fountain—that is, the Fountain of Love.
WHEN His Holiness Christ appeared amongst the Jews, the first thing he did was to proclaim the validity of the Mosaic mission. He declared that the Torah, the Old Testament, was the Book of God. . . . The fame of Moses, through the Christian Movement, was spread broadcast . . . it was through the instrumentality of Christ, it was through the translation of the New Testament—the little volume of the Gospel—that the Old Testament, the Torah, was translated into six hundred languages and spread throughout the world at large. . . .
Likewise, with the superlative power and the efficacious Word of God he gathered together most of the nations of the East and the West. This was accomplished at a time when those nations were in the utmost of contention and strife. He ushered all of them into the overshadowing tent of the oneness of humanity. He so educated them that they united and agreed, even so that the Roman, the Greek, the Chaldean, the Assyrian and the Egyptian nations were perfectly blended, and the heavenly civilization was the result. (B. S., 729, 730.)
BY HIS (Christ) promulgating the laws of the Bible, the reality of the law of Moses was meant. The Sinaitic law is the foundation of the reality of Christianity. Christ promulgated it and gave it higher, spiritual expression. . . . His
conquests were effected through the breaths of the Holy Spirit, which eliminated all boundaries and shone from all horizons. . . . Had it not been for His Holiness Christ you would not have heard the name of Moses; and unless the manifestation of Messiahship had appeared in Christ we would not have received the Old Testament. (B. S., page 333.)
THOSE WHO looked at the material body of Christ and saw him enduring all the hardships and trials, marveled that he was the Messiah because he was in this lowly condition. As they were considering his physical being, they failed to see the light shining within it. But those who looked to the spiritual and the real existence of the Spirit in Christ, firmly believed in him. We must not look at the lantern, but at the Light. (B. S. 959.)
WHAT AN infinite degree of love is reflected by the Divine Manifestations toward mankind! For the sake of guiding the people they have willingly forfeited their lives to resuscitate human hearts. They have accepted the cross. To enable human souls to attain the supreme degree of advancement they have suffered during their limited years extreme ordeals and difficulties. If His Holiness Jesus Christ had not possessed love for the world of humanity, surely he would not have welcomed the cross. He was crucified for the love of mankind. Consider the infinite degree of that love! . . . It has been likewise with all the prophets and holy souls. If His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh had not been aflame with love for humanity, he would not ' have willingly accepted fifty years’ imprisonment.
THE WORK of the shepherd is to bring together the scattered sheep. . . . His Holiness Christ was a real Shepherd. At the time of his manifestation, the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians and Egyptians were like so many scattered flocks. Christ breathed upon them the spirit of unity and harmonized them. . . . His Holiness Jesus Christ was an educator of humanity and His teachings were altruistic; his bestowal universal. He taught mankind by the power of the Holy Spirit and not through human agency, for the human power is limited, whereas the divine power is illimitable and infinite. The influence and accomplishment of Christ will attest this. . . . If you reflect upon the essential teachings of Jesus you will realize that they are the light of the world. Nobody can question their truth. They are the very source of life and the cause of happiness to the human race. The forms and superstitions which appeared and obscured the light did not affect the Reality of Christ.” (Pro. of U. P., p. 157, 82.)
WHEN CHRIST appeared he manifested himself at Jerusalem. He called men to the Kingdom of God, he invited them to eternal life, and he told them to acquire human perfections. The Light of Guidance was shed forth by that radiant Star, and he at length gave his life for humanity. All through his blessed life he suffered oppression and hardship, and in spite of all this humanity was his enemy. They denied him, scorned him, ill-treated him, and cursed him. He was not treated like a man—and yet in spite of all this he was the embodiment of pity, and of supreme goodness and love. He loved all humanity, but they treated him as an enemy and were incapable of appreciating him. They set no value on his words, and were not illumined by the flame of his love.
Later they realized who he was. That he was the sacred and Divine Light, and that his words held eternal life. His heart was full of love for all the world, his goodness was destined to reach each one—and as they began to realize these things they repented, but he had been crucified!
It was not until many years after his
ascension that they knew who he was, and at the time of his ascension he had only a very few disciples; only a comparatively small following believed His precepts and followed His laws. The ignorant said, “Who is this individual; he has only a few disciples?” But those who knew said, “He is the Sun who will shine in the East and in the West, he is the manifestation who shall give life to the world. What the first disciples had seen the world realized later. (Wisdom Talks in Paris, p. 114-5.)
“SURELY for everything there is an all-comprehending wisdom; especially for the great and important affairs of life. The supreme and most important happening in the human world is the Manifestation of God and the descent of the law of God. The holy, divine manifestations did not reveal themselves for the purpose of founding a nation, sect or faction. They did not appear in order that a certain number might acknowledge their prophethood. They did not declare their heavenly mission and message in order to lay the foundation for a religious belief. Even His Holiness Christ did not become manifest that we should merely believe in him as the Christ, follow him and adore his mention. All these are limited in scope and requirement, whereas the Reality of Christ is an unlimited essence. The infinite and unlimited Reality cannot be bounded by any limitation. Nay, rather His Holiness Christ appeared in order to illumine the world of humanity, to render the earthly world celestial, to make the human kingdom a realm, of angels, to unite the hearts, to enkindle the light of love in human souls, so that such souls might become independent, attaining complete unity and fellowship, turning to God, entering into the divine kingdom, receiving the bounties and bestowals of God and partaking of the manna from heaven. Through Christ they were intended to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, attain a new spirit and realize the life everlasting. All the holy precepts and the announcements of prophetic laws were for these various and heavenly purposes.” (Pro. of U. P., Vol. 2, p. 438.)
THE Cause of Bahá’u’lláh is the same as the Cause of Christ. It is the same temple and the same foundation. Both of these are spiritual springtimes and seasons of the soul-refreshing awakening and the cause of the renovation of the life of mankind. The spring of this year is the same as the spring of last year. The origins and ends are the same. The sun of today is the sun of yesterday. In the coming of Christ, the divine teachings were given in accordance with the infancy of the human race. The teachings of Bahá’u’lláh have the same basic principles, but are according to the stage of the maturity of the world and the requirements of this illumined age. (Tablets, Vol. 3, p, 535.)
TRUTH is one and without division. The teachings of Jesus are in a concentrated form. Men do not agree to this day, as to the meaning of many of His sayings. His teachings are as a flower in the bud. Today, the bud is unfolding into a flower. Bahá’u’lláh has expanded and fulfilled the teachings, and has applied them in detail to the whole world.
There is one God; mankind is one; the foundations of religion are one. Let us worship Him, and give praise for all His great Prophets and Messengers who have manifested His brightness and glory. (Wisdom Talks in London.)
“CHRIST was a heavenly physician. He brought spiritual health and healing into the world. Bahá’u’lláh is likewise a divine physiican. He has revealed prescriptions for removing disease from the body politic and has remedied human conditions by spiritual power.” (Pro. of U. P., Vol. 2, p. 244.)
IF we enquired what relation the rulers of England, for instance, bore to each other in the order of succession, in the order of physical height, and in the order of administrative justice, we would receive three entirely different sets of answers: the same people would be concerned in all the answers but their relations would be continuously readjusted, the first on one list appearing, perhaps, last on another. Continuity in time bears no resemblance whatever to physical appearance or spiritual culture. What could be more impossible than to inform an atom of hydrogen of the power of choice: the ability to determine for one's self whether one would accept or reject a certain condition: it would be manifestly as impossible to explain choice to those chemical elements held inexorably within the limits of predetermined affinities as it would be to instruct a triangle about duty and moral obligation; about patiently relinquishing all the characteristics, of triangularity in order to enter into higher relationships of love and of service. Human consciousness reveals to us, as it were, exciting and provocative cross-sections of Reality with the connections elevated above the limits of our perception. Since the discovery of radio-activity, our knowledge of the atomic world has become almost definite, but no scientist has ever yet led us to that realm where the vibration of negative electricity resident in the ion is miraculously transmuted into trees and houses and bodies and engines and worlds and suns and the whole multifarious congeries of natural phenomena; no physician has ever demonstrated in his clinic that power resident in the personality to control its animal instincts and impulses; and no priest has revealed to us the sphere in which the divine harvest of abnegation and regeneration springs from the thorn-choked thicket of the human heart. The small boy whose sole information about Africa had been gained through the study of a map replied, when asked to describe it, that it was very pink. Our impressions of hidden causes are about as accurate.
But occasionally one arises who makes the spiritual journey and though familiar with the outposts of spiritual experience toward which the caravan of mankind is slowly moving, can only impart to us figurative information about the splendor of its domes, spires and battlements. Not through any necromancy could we describe to a horse or a dog, no matter how intelligent, the doctrine of the atonement or the institution of monogamy, for these exist in a dimension entirely closed to animal attainment or comprehension; so the grades and degrees to which the spirit is summoned by the great Prophets of the world, can be neither explained nor comprehended by the natural man “of the earth earthy.” Each must make the journey for himself.
Gathered within the conscious scope of the human being lie several recognized and defined dimensions: first the atomic world, then the organic, both occupying space; after that the mental, whose processes occupy the three dimensions of time—past, present and future, but whose relations lie in that uncharted realm of thesis, antithesis and synthesis pointed out by Hegel. Beauty dwells in a kingdom remote from time, space and thought, subject to none of the laws regulating these latter, while faith and love represent constituencies far from the realm of logic.
Occasionally a great man or woman
gifted with a genius for God reaches the realm of Reality where all the hidden causes are revealed. Any attempt to clothe in language that we can understand, the rapture of escape from the poverty of our human struggles, bears the same relation to its condition as calling Africa pink. The conditions that characterize this emancipated state of being lie entirely outside the realm of human understanding.
Of course every man longs to win his way to that state of poise, comprehension and ease that will lift him above the tyranny of shock, disappointment, futility and misery to which the dark limitations of mere human consciousness remand him. But how is this state to be found?
The most workable philosophy advanced in Greek thought that mothered philosophy, seems to have been that of Aristotle. Coleridge once said that all men are born either Platonists or Aristotleians, and the demarkation rests upon whether or not they are trying to coerce the life into rarefied diaphanous elusive and denatured expression of some fine exalted abstraction, remote and almost unattainable, or to find hardy adventurous absorbing concrete expression for all the functions of the personality. For Plato taught that the lower functions of the being were to be subordinated to the higher, but Aristotle taught that the object of life was so to develop and coordinate all the endowments of the individual that no one thing would be exercised at the expense of another; thus the natural expression of all the capacities would be equilibrized in a “golden mean.”
Most of the restlessness, the darkness, the search for completion that beset mankind come because some one power, capacity or function is developed at the expense of some other. Subordinating the lower functions to the higher is a perfectly delightful suggestion if we only had the smallest way of knowing what is lower and what is higher. The Greek denied the soul and burned with the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure!
The Puritan denied the body and atrophied into the dessicated monotony of those who live for duty. Religion teaches us that the only illegitimacy in pleasure is in seeking it; that pleasure is one of the rich rewards of consecration and self-forgetfulness.
The tumultuous, almost frantic effort of the soul, is to find some state or condition in which it can work out a destiny undisturbed by the oppression and frustrations of our incessant maladjustment to environment and to each other.
Just here we meet the dividing line between philosophy and religion: philosophy attempts to tell us how to fit life to our purposes; religion teaches us how to fit ourselves to Life‘s purposes. The one is ego-centric, the other is altru-centric; the one is based upon the idea of acquisition, the other upon the law of sacrifice; the one tells us how to get more out of life, the other how to put more into life; the one that there is a self to be subserved, the other that self is a mere illusion, that the conception of the self and something outside the self is as chimerical as flesh to the X-ray. It requires a singular super-human and peculiar effort to lift the inorganic substance of personal desire, greed and preferment into the organic life of sympathy, love and understanding. We quite naturally exemplify the old definition of an optimist–a person who does not care what happens as long as it doesn't happen to him,—for it is an axiomatic fact that any of us could be perfectly happy at any moment, if it weren’t for ourselves. Nothing is simpler than to sit in an easy chair and with care-free fluency solve the problems of all our family and friends; and if our nerve currents happen to be flowing smoothly, the destinies of the universe.
There is a cosmic humor in the abrupt incongruity with which the flow of complaisance is checked by the encounter with the self. The Buddha with a cogency that no dialectic has ever overthrown, establishes the simple and commanding
Truth that all the misery, the sorrow, the anguish, the grief in the world can be traced to the idea of duality, the idea that there is more than one essence, one life, one truth, one reality. If we are identified with all that is, then there is no loss, no separation, no lack, for we have found the true wealth of universal being; the thing that gives the impression of two—is the personality—which he teaches is in its finality a mere differentiated aspect of an indivisible oneness.
Of course, it is no news, to anybody that many universes impinge on the experience of man, and that he must rise to a superhuman consciousness to find their interrelations. The question for us is how to make that ascent, how to discipline our lives to that divine end. Certainly by exercising all of our God-given capacities, as Aristotle teaches; for purposes not of selfish aggrandizement, however, but with the hardy hope that we may become fit instruments for the expression of God’s Will.
The function of the conscious mind is to limit the world in which we live. If the retina responded to more than seven hundred and eighty billion light waves per second, the material universe would at once become a shadow, as it does to the ultra-violet ray; there would be no differentiation amongst the objects that surround us; or if the eye were blurred with less than four hundred and forty billion waves, for that is infra-red, all would be outer darkness to the human sense. In either case mankind would be quickly annihilated. Without the sense of touch which limits, among other things, the degrees of heat and cold that we can endure, we could not long survive. A superficial analysis shows that the function of the intellect is safely to pilot the individual through the shoals and quicksands of a three dimensional universe. Now the mind could not in any wise serve the personality if it did not immediately detect all the objects about it in their proper relations, not only the objects of the physical universe, but the objects of thought, for a well-trained mind enables us to find our way about amongst ideas with the same certainty with which we trace our path through a woods or a garden. But when the mind has performed this function it has ceased to be of any further value, for it can not traverse the uncharted seas of the spirit. A whole atomic universe exists below its grasp and a whole spiritual kingdom beyond its ken. And most of the torment of life comes from trying to use this acute and marvelous instrument, designed for one particular activity, in realms where it cannot function. We seldom encounter anything more distressing, if we are endowed with even a small capacity for clear and accurate thinking, than those loose undirected opaque gelatinous movements of unthinking people who are trying to find their way around a three dimensional world with the heart, an instrument designed to be used in a totally different dimension. But what is more futile than trying to find one’s way about the region of the soul with the intellect?
We begin to see why mankind must function on all planes if he is going to have anything valuable to contribute to life; for if he do not sternly hold himself to the rigid mathematical precision of straight thinking, we must continually pull him out of the quicksand of emotionalism; if he do indulge the heart in its incessant cry for warmth and love and friendliness, we must painfully watch him decay into dogmatism and crystallize into pedantry and routine.
What can he more pathetically amusing than to hear the intellectual type of man decrying emotionalism and the emotional type decrying intellectualism, as if the other were false and supererogatory. One thing is absolutely definite: we cannot find our way about the physical universe without a well-trained mind; we cannot find our way around the spiritual universe without a well-trained
heart, any more than we can find our way around the atomic universe without a well-trained body.
In the first place it is just as atrocious to confuse sentiment and sentimentality, as it is to confuse intellectual capacity with pedantry. Sentimentality is the mere expenditure of emotion for the sake of expending it, just because we enjoy a thrill; but our sentiments are the deepest and holiest things in our souls, the very matrix from which our actions are generated. Once a piece of social work brought to notice a quite nauseating example of sentimentality; in a cabaret frequented almost exclusively by crooks and criminals a song was sung celebrating mother love; the uproarious applause that greeted it was painful; for not a man there who had not broken some mother’s heart, and would again and again. But who dares say, for instance, that the reverence of Abraham Lincoln for his mother was sentimental? Here is a distinction so complete and so obvious that we might expect it to be universally recognized; but the untrained (alas! sometimes the trained) mind is just as “soft-focus” in its conclusions as the emotions.
As a matter of fact we should neither think for the sake of thinking (which is pedantry), nor feel for the sake of feeling. We should think and feel and will and act and live for the sake of becoming that thing without which humanity will never reach its ultimate stature—vital cells in the divine body of the Manifestation of God.
It requires all our wit to get around the very limited revelation of the universe that is accorded us here; why attempt to cast aside any of the important implements given us for this voyage of discovery? The selfishness of the mind and the unselfishness of the heart are an equal impediment to human progress, for both selfishness and unselfishness are extremes to the program of Baha’u’llah. He calls upon us for selfishness [corrected to "selflessness" per Issue 11], the utter absorption of the self into the social body; and it takes the mighty unremitting heroic effort of mind and soul and heart to lift man from the inorganic station of self to the organic station of spirit.
Baha’u’llah teaches us, not as a philosophy but as a religious mandate, the necessity of the complete functioning of the individual in all the degrees and stations of his life in order to make this prodigous transition. Religion must accord with science; asceticism must be abandoned; inventions, arts and crafts must be developed; everything is evidently grist to the mill of life, and must fulfill the great purpose of releasing man from the age-old tyranny of self into the divine democracy of union.
There can be no peace while the mind is denying the heart. Before we can be caught up into that ecstatic freedom from struggle that comes from union with our source, the inner processes must learn to function spontaneously and with correct adjustment on all the planes of our present being.
We must see naught anywhere but God, and remove the obstruction of personality so that the heavenly law may work through us. The mind enables us finally to triumph over the physical universe and to arrange a world of thought as orderly and methodical as the world of matter. The heart enables us to triumph over the self and to attain to the limitless universe of love in which we become one with all that is. These functions are separate and indispensable. But there is no final attainment except through the exalted realization of God as the Mover and Container of all that is. Our faith in the Unseen is not contrary to reason; it is above reason. It does not abrogate the worlds beneath it, but brings the whole discontinuous and discrete universe into one mighty accord. Only by ceaseless effort can we transcend the suffocating limitations of this narrow earth and make of it another world filled with the holy ecstasy of the grace of the Kingdom.
PEACE is not a manufactured article. It is a Divine Power. It cannot be made, or kept by any human contrivance, by battleships, armies, airships, or any diplomatic ingenuity. That alone which can bring peace to the individual and to the world, healing all strife, reconciling all differences, subduing all animosity, banding men together in mutual fellowship and the common tasks of humanity, is the Peace of GOD. When there is Love there will be Peace.
We are living in a spiritual springtime, a new era, or cycle, and all hearts are being stirred and quickened, that have in them the germ of spiritual life, though they know not why. This spiritual condition is most beautifully described by our beloved poet, Longfellow, in these, his words:
- "As torrents in summer, half dried in
- their channels,
- Suddenly rise, though the sky is still
- cloudless
- For rain has been falling far off at their
- fountains,
- So hearts that are weary, grow full to
- o’erflowing,
- And those that behold it, marvel and
- know not,
- That God at their fountains, far off has
- been raining.”
Victor Hugo has truly said, “You might as well try to hold back the sun from rising as to try to hold back an Ideal when the hour for its fulfillment has struck,” and the hour for the fulfillment of this Divine Ideal of Universal Peace has struck, whether we will or not that it should be.
’Abdu’l’Bahá, the Bearer of the Ensign of Peace to the world, has written:
“Clouds may veil the sun, but be they never so dense his rays will penetrate! Nothing can prevent the radiance of the sun descending to warm and vivify the divine garden. Nothing can prevent the fall of the rain from Heaven. Nothing can prevent the fulfillment of the Word of God.”
Amid the conflict and strife manifested in the world today on all sides, one has to cling closely to the life line of faith in the ultimate good of all things. Above the cries of distress and the clashing of human wills, one has to strain the inner ear of the spirit to catch the great overtone of Peace and Unity arising above the discords. We stand watching the passing away of a self-consuming material civilization (or might we not better say the want of civilization?) which has reached its zenith in destructiveness and opposition along all lines, and we are beholding, not the death agonies of the nations, but the birth-pangs heralding the coming of the Child of Peace, and the dawn of a glad New Day, wherein justice and arbitration, freedom and equality shall reign; and the old world, rebuked for its waywardness, sanctified by its sorrows, will be more ready to interpret life, its triumph and its peace in the terms of Spirit, and thus will it be prepared for the New Civilization which is slowly but surely marching on.
We rejoice with exceeding joy that God indeed has been “raining far off at our fountains,” and this New Water of Life–which has flowed through the Divine Channel of Bahá’u’lláh—contains in it the healing for the nations, and the foundation for Universal Peace.
Let us build up in our consciousness a Child of Peace composed of the Ideals given forth to the world by Bahá’u’lláh. First, this child must have the head of Knowledge, Reason, Wisdom, Education and Broadmindedness. We read in the Bible, of this day of promised Peace that “the nations shall learn war no more.” Education and scientific discoveries
and inventions which should have been used for the upliftment and the welfare of humanity, have been so often applied to “scientific warfare” and appalling destruction. Now let the nations learn Peace, not as a “sentimental ideal,” as many have termed it, but rather as a practical and fundamental basis of true civilization. Let us educate ourselves and our children in the Principles of Peace, its benefits and constructive power for good, for progress and for spiritual and material development along all planes of existence.
Bahá’u’lláh has declared that an International Court of Arbitration shall be established: then this Child of Peace must bear upon its shoulders Law, Order, Justice and Arbitration.
This Divine Child must be formed of graciousness, consideration for the ideas of others and acquiescence. All rebellion causes the neck to become stiff, as it is written in the Bible, “a stiff necked and rebellious nation;” so our Child of Peace must know “radiant acquiescence” to the Divine Will, and bow its head in true submission thereto.
It must have the breast of human kindness, faith and aspiration, the heart of divine love, compassion and purity.
Next, the sixth Bahá’í Basic Principle–the Equality of men and women–must be represented in its arms, like the two wings of the Bird of Humanity, each being equal in strength and power, and thereby maintaining a perfect balance—equality on all planes, mentally, physically, and spiritually, with one standard of morals for each.
Next this Child of Peace must possess the hands of service to all humanity, ever outheld, not in the spirit of “what can I get,” but in that of “what can I give” in service to the world.
It must have the limbs or columns of support and of perfect adjustment; adjustment of all social and economic problems, which is one of the Bahá’í Basic Principles.
Next it must have the knees of worship and reverence for all that is sacred and holy; it must “kneel before the Lord its maker,” and in prayer ask for Divine Guidance.
It must have the feet of research, of “Independent Investigation of Truth,” seeking in all the highways and byways of life in its search for Truth. These feet must be shod with the “Gospel of Peace on Earth, good will to men,” and “One with every pathway trod, leading man unto his God.”
Through this Child of Peace must circulate the rich red blood of Universal Brotherhood, free from the taint and poison of racial and religious prejudice, vitalizing the whole body with the spirit of love and life; in a word, the Love of God, which includes all living things.
The atmosphere in which this Child of Peace can alone live and breath is that of purity of purpose and freedom, physical, mental and spiritual freedom—which alone is gained through obedience to the Laws of God and to His Commands. Its breath must be that of the inbreathing of the Spirit of Life and the outbreathing of love and service.
The first step establishing this Body of Peace in the beauty of Holiness or Wholeness, must be disarmament on both material and mental planes; not alone the material laying down of arms, but the laying down and obliterating those invisible, but none the less deadly, weapons of racial hatred, intolerance, ignorance, suspicion, doubt and fear. A national Guard for protection against outlaws should be maintained, but no more.
This Child of Peace will likewise have a universal langauge, which is also one of the Baha’i Principles. Each nation should retain its “mother tongue,” but educate its children also in the use of this universal language, that man may have social and commercial intercourse with his brother man. A thousand and one of the differences between nations today
is caused by lack of proper interpretation of their aims and ideas and their spiritual ideals.
Thus our Child of Peace must speak a language all may understand and thereby remove these linguistic barriers.
May this transcendentah Child of Divine Love and Peace be born in the minds of all at this blessed Season of “Peace on earth, good will to men,” for it alone can establish that Universal Peace for which we pray. May the nations all hear the voice of this “Little Child” that is to lead them into the Kingdom of Love, and hearing, open the portals of their hearts and take it in and thereby know that “Peace which passeth all understanding.” For as ’Abdu’l-Bahá has said:
"THE PROPHETS have not come to cause discord and enmity. For God has wished all good for His servants, and he who wishes the servants of God evil is against God; he has not obeyed the will and emulated the example of God; he has followed satanic leadings and footprints. The attributes of God are love and mercy; the attribute of satan is hate. Therefore, he who is merciful and kind to his fellowmen is manifesting the divine attribute, and he who is hating and hostile toward a fellow creature is satanic. God is absolute love, even as his holiness Jesus Christ has declared, and satan is utter hatred. Wherever love is witnessed, know there is a manifestation of God’s mercy; whenever you meet hatred and enmity, know that these are the evidences and attributes of satan. The prophets have appeared in this world with the mission that human souls may become the expressions of the Merciful, that they may be educated and developed, attain to love and amity and establish peace and agreement.”
HOW wonderful the inner meaning of the word Sacrifice—"to make holy!" True sacrifice, ’Abdu’l-Bahá tells us, “means joy and giving life to the spirits!” In it is a spiritual transformation, not asceticism nor exclusion of bounty, but the fulfilment of the great purpose in nobleness.
In God’s great plan for the life on earth, the progress of mankind is through the sacrifice of ignorance for the growth of knowledge; the sacrifice of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, for love, sincerity, and blessed forgiveness.
It was love that made Abraham sacrifice his pride in Isaac, his son, to his faith in God’s wisdom.
It was love that made Moses arise to sacrifice his worldly ambitions and power, to lead the stumbling Jews to the surer paths of God’s Holy Land! When his body found rest on Nebo’s heights, the eternal lesson of the Light of God manifest in him, flamed forth to illumine hearts through all the ages to come.
It was love that made the Divine Manifestation, Christ, suffer all things, that all men might know of their Father in heaven who was to come, and through this knowledge prepare their souls to recognize the signs of the times and enter into His Kingdom, when His Spirit should return again in the Manifestation of His Glory.
It was love that made The Bab sacrifice life itself that the Muhammadan world—offered the first fruits of God’s grace in this New Day–might prepare their hearts to meet the Manifestation of the Presence of God in Glory!
It was love of God for man, His creation,
that made Baha’u’llah, the pure mirror of the Infinite for the regeneration of souls, sacrifice his holy existence, that through the Spoken Word, men might have a new capacity for realization of the Will of God.
It was the love of God that gave us the service of ’Abdu’l-Bahá on earth, so that through his loving sacrifice for the salvation of the world, the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh might be spread, and the consciousness of the Messianic Outpouring through Bahá’u’lláh might cover the earth, and the New Cycle of human power take its form in the joy of universal civilization.
To the Divine Station the way is barred for all mankind. All that the souls of the creatures of this creation can attain, is knowledge of IT through the Manifestation of Its attributes by those Divinely sent Messengers whose Presence is for the renewing of spirituality upon earth.
Each such Day of Manifestation has been the hour of opportunity for living souls; the hour of birth into unfolding of righteousness. A Day of enraptured vision of the reality of sacrifice! Today, in this Dispensation a like opportunity for each soul is here. It is the hour of testing, the hour of the joy of realization of the Divine Bounty poured upon all, for until another Divine Cycle has emerged from another emanation of the Primal Will, all existent beings are under the shade of the Manifestation of the Glory of God.
May our highest possible aspirations be fulfilled on every plane in order that we may so live, that by a heavenly grace, we may render true service in the Path of God.
’Abdu’l-Bahá brings to us the Message of Bahá’u’lláh—the Call of the Kingdom of God! The Call to sacrifice the imaginations of men’s minds regarding Divinity, for the realization of the Revealed Truth of God in recorded Utterance; to sacrifice the limitations of the ego for the wider horizons of God’s Bestowals!
Sacrifice is the joy of life, the joy of its movement, the joy of its fruit.
This is the hour of preparation. Now is the Day of sanctification, of purification, of judgment. The Day when imperfection will be sacrificed to become perfection, when those who are born of spirit shall make a willing sacrifice of man-made license, to the Divine Law; of man-made politics, to Divine Policies; of man-made mistakes, to Divine Guidance; of man-made confusion, to Universal Peace; of man-made sorrow, to Divine Healing; of man-made night through the gloom of the World, to the Day of God, and that Day–Happy!
happening in the human world is the Manifestation of God and the descent of the law of God.
In this day when a new spirit is permeating every human activity, overturning old conditions and replacing them with a wholly new note of universalism it is well to take notice of what really is going on that one may understand the significance of it all and wisely estimate the value. We read in the book of Genesis that “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” and the mystical thrill of it lingers in one’s memory from the time when a child, he first heard the days of creation explained in the old-time literal way. Many a time, looking out over the sea, to the mind of every man must have come this great feeling of awe and reverence as he endeavored to understand the meaning of the “Spirit of God moving over the face of those waters.” But now those symbols are taking on a new and practical value which intensifies their meaning and brings them down to the limit of human understanding and valuation.
Some time ago the writer was privileged to be present at what is called the "Boy Scout Court of Honor.” This "Court” is held once a month in every city where the Scouts are active and is for the purpose of awarding degrees and medals for the various activities which Scouting provides. The court is composed of estimable men citizens and is conducted in the most dignified manner as befits the ideals of the organization. On the particular evening in question there were present and filling the large auditorium of a High School building, some six hundred boys, with their parents and sisters and brothers, and there were to be awarded five hundred honors. The citations were for life-saving, public health, personal health, first aid, bird lore, kindness to animals, leathercraft, woodcraft, athletics, electricity, seamanship, campcraft, signaling, nature study, scholarship, courtesy,–in fact, for many of the forty-odd subjects which every Scout knows and toward which he bends every effort to achieve. In order to become a Scout a boy must pledge himself to
1st. Do his duty to God and his country and to obey the Scout Law.
2nd. To help other people at all times.
3rd. To keep himself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
His platform is Trustworthiness, Loyalty, Helpfulness, Friendship, Courtesy, Kindness, Obedience, Cheerfulness, Thrift, Bravery, Cleanliness, Reverence.
The neat little uniform of the Boy Scout is so well known and their helpfulness now so counted upon that this subject is no longer new nor novel; but the significance of it all is so deep, so vital, so constructive and so essential to the foundation of the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven,” that it must not be misunderstood nor underestimated. There are many who labor under the delusion that because obedience is taught by military precision that this is only another way of training up boys for war, but the writer desires to emphasize that every plank of the Scout platform is expressive of the Christian Spirit and not of war.
It was when looking over the sea of fine boy faces at that Court of Honor that the deeper meaning of that mystical reference from the Book of Genesis became clear. ’Abdu’l-Bahá has explained that, “the face of the waters” is the sea of humanity, and in the Bahá’í teachings mankind is frequently likened to the “drops of one sea.” Both in the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá humanity is enjoined to be unified as are the ripples of one sea, the waves of one ocean. Is it not a significant fact that there are over one million five hundred thousand boys in the world, boys of
many races and many religions who are learning to understand each other, to respect each other’s point of view; who are unified in the spirit of service; who are learning to know the God of all Out-Doors who is removing from their hearts all the old-time prejudice of race and creed and giving them so solid and honorable a foundation for right living and right thinking?
This is the Christ Spirit which has been, and always will be, in the world, but which is manifest in this age with greater power than ever before because it is the time of universal things, the time of “the end, when all things shall be made new”; the time when all the nations shall be one; and the Name of God, One; the time of the coming of the Prince of Peace.
know that everything which belongs to the universal welfare is divine, and all that which is divine is certainly for universal good. If it is the truth, it is for all, otherwise it is for no one. Therefore, a divine cause for universal good cannot be limited to the Orient or to the Occident; because the flame of the Sun of Truth illumines the East and the West, and its heat is felt in the South as well as the North,—there is no difference between the two poles. In the time of the Manifestation of Christ, the Romans and Greeks thought that the Cause was especially for the Israelites; they thought they themselves had no need of it, because they saw that according to appearances, they possessed a perfect civilization, wherefore they did not need the instructions of Christ. This false supposition was the cause of depriving many people from its grace.
Also know that the principles of Christianity and the commandments of Bahá’u’lláh are identical, and that the roads are the same. But every day there is progress. There was a time when the divine institution was in an embryonic condition; then it became a newly-born infant, then a child, afterward an intelligent adult. Today it has reached maturity; its capacities, its body, is ever the same identity–but today it is resplendent with the greatest beauty and brilliancy.
THIS is the age of world-wide progress. A universal consciousness is penetrating the minds of men.
The pessimist says the world is growing worse. The optimist declares, “It is steadily growing better. Mankind is progressing, its vision is widening, its capacity is increasing. Humanity is advancing from the provincial and personal to the universal concept of life.
During the last hundred years the world has made most unusual progress. In a material sense our civilization is almost perfect. As the intelligence of man has unfolded, the sciences, arts and inventions have so greatly increased that today mankind is prepared to think and act in terms of the universal.
The ends of the earth have been brought together. A friend in China can receive a message from us in twenty-four hours. The great network of rail-systems that weave their way across the continents connect the most remote parts with the ocean steamer, submarine and airship. We can take a trip around the world through the medium of the motion picture. The phonograph enables us to hear musical artists from all parts of the globe. Marvelous developments in radio are awakening people to the wonders of this day. The newspaper is a great factor in influencing public opinion the world over.”
Here the pessimist interrupts with insistence. He says, “The result of all this increase in knowledge has been the most terrible war in history. The intelligence of man is being expended in the direction of killing his fellow-man. You talk of the wonders of this cycle, its achievements, its refinements, its genius! What medieval period held the horror of a Krupp gun, a Mauser rifle, or a shrapnel shell that kills a whole camp? On the sea we have the submarine and the dreadnaught. Compared with the past, this is the age of human fratricide. History shows that in a war between the Persian and Roman Empires, lasting over a period of twenty years in which 100,000 men were engaged on each side, only five or six thousand were killed. In modern warfare there are bombs that kill men like stripping leaves from a tree. The science of war has reached such a degree of perfection that in twenty-four hours 100,000 can be sacrificed, great navies sent to the bottom of the sea, great cities destroyed. The possibilities are incalculable, inconceivable, the after effects more dreadful than the initial shock. “Newspapers! Did you mention newspapers,” the rasping voice of the cynic continues, “newspapers live by the sensational! If war is declared in any part of the world the newspapers direct all attention to it. Commerce and the machinery of nations are paralyzed. The whole world is thrown into a condition of grave uncertainty. In fact, the world is convulsed with many kinds of war and conflict–political war, commercial war, racial war, economic war, religious war, intellectual war. This is the civilization of war! The world is black with hatred and prejudice!” So declares the pessimist.
Let us reason together a moment. Have you discovered that the darkest part of the night is just before the dawn? Do you know that in most illnesses the patient grows apparently worse before he can get better? Have you noticed that the blackest shadow is cast by the brightest light? Do you know that the birth of anything is difficult?
Again the optimist proclaims, “Mankind is progressing. He is learning to think in terms of the whole instead of the part. The war, the bloodshed, the suffering, the economic struggle, the unrest are symptoms, signs of a wonderful
event. They are the pains of travail that the world of humanity is passing through in giving birth to a new civilization. ‘The everwidening circle of man’s knowledge has reached the spiritual world.’ A divine civilization is being born.”
Here we are in a valley of darkness, suffering from injustice and prejudice. Let us look out and up and we will discover the light of a New Day beginning to illumine the summit of progress. The Divine Sun has appeared at another point on the horizon. The Rays of that Sun are penetrating the human world. Let us consider just two of the many Rays of that early dawn. What signs can we find of their light in the world?
The first Ray of that early dawn is the realization of the Oneness of the World of Humanity. “Ye are all the leaves of one tree, the fruit of one branch.” That is, the world of existence is like a tree, the nations or races may be compared to the branches of that tree, and human individuals are similar to the leaves, blossoms and fruit of that tree. Again, the world of existence is like a flower garden: human individuals are the flowers in that garden of life. The variety of form and color lends beauty to the whole, and brings out by contrast the special loveliness of each and all.
How many people today think in terms of the red race, the white race and black race, the yellow race, the brown race? Is it not the human race that is of most importance today? “Let not a man glory in this that he loves his country, rather let him glory in this, that he loves his kind.”
The second ray of that early dawn is the discovery of the equality of the sexes. “Formerly in the Orient women were not considered as human beings. Certain Arab tribes counted them in with their live stock. In their language, the noun for woman also meant donkey; that is, the same name applied to both and a man's wealth was accounted by the number of these beasts of burden he possessed. The worst insult one could hurl at a man was to call out, “Thou woman!” The American Indian in an uncivilized state allowed his squaw to rear a family and at the same time to do all the hard labor of the day—while he sat around and smoked or fought in battle.
What a difference exists today! Civilization has advanced. Woman is awake to her identity. The feminist movement has demonstrated that the feminine is the equal and complement of the masculine element of humanity.
W. L. George in his book, “Woman and Tomorrow” says, “Feminism is broadly the furthering of the interests of women, philosophically the leveling of the sexes, and specifically the social and political emancipation of woman.”
The unusual activity of woman today is a sign of the higher consciousness that humanity as a whole is unfolding.
I wonder how many know the name of the first woman who gave her life to proclaim the freedom of her sex? She was Kurratu’l-Ayn, a beautiful Persian poetess. Kurratu’l-Ayn means “Consolation of the eyes.” In 1863, in a land where girls received no education, in a country where custom demanded thick protecting veils for all women at all times, among a people who considered it a disgrace to be the parents of a girl baby, Kurratu'l-Ayn arose and throwing aside her veil, fearlessly proclaimed the dawn of a New Age in which superstition, fanatical custom and ignorance would be done away with.
She believed that humanity is like a bird, created to soar in the atmosphere of God's knowledge. One wing of the bird represents the masculine and the other the feminine element of humanity. If the two wings are not equally developed the bird of humanity cannot soar to its greatest heights.
For such ideas as these Kurratu’l-Ayn joyfully sacrificed her life. She was killed, her body thrown into a well, and stones heaped upon it. But Kurratu’l-Ayn was only one of over twenty thousand martyrs who gave their lives
to help establish the principles of Universal Unity and Peace in the minds of men.
The Oneness of Humanity and the Equality of Men and Women are only two of the many principles of the Bahá’í Movement for world-wide progress.
You say, “What is the Bahá’í Movement?”
“Bahá’í means ‘light.’ The Bahá’í Movement is the light of this age, the spirit of this age. Its Principles are the antidotes for all the prejudice, ignorance and warefare in the human world.
The Bahá’í Movement stands for universal education, a universal auxiliary language, it points out the fundamental oneness of all the religions, it indicates the necessity for the independent investigation of truth, it explains the fundamental harmony between science and religion, it supplies a perfect solution for all the economic problems of the world, it shows the necessity for the establishment of an international tribunal or court of justice, it demonstrates the fundamental oneness of the whole creational world, it proves the equality of the sexes, it constantly strives to establish universal peace.
The Bahá’í Movement is wholly constructive. Its only warfare is with ignorance, prejudice and intolerance.
A study of the Bahá’í Movement inculcates in the human mind the desire and ability to associate harmoniously with every race, with every religion. A student of the Bahá’í Movement learns to search for the Beauty of God in the face of every human being.
Such an investigator learns to believe that in the sight of God all people are equal. The only difference is that some are as children and need to be trained, some are sick and need divine healing, some are ignorant and require education. All are children of the One Creator and under His protection.
The Bahá’í Movement, with a dynamic spiritual power, is promoting Universal Peace and Universal Cooperation.
’Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of this world-wide movement, said, “This is the hour of unity of the sons of men and of the drawing together of all races and all classes.”
Truth. All have been united and agreed on this principle. Every prophet predicted the coming of a successor, and every successor acknowledged the Truth of the predecessor. Moses prophesied the coming of Christ. Christ acknowledged Moses. His Highness Christ foretold the appearance of Muhammad, and Muhammad accepted the Christ and Moses. When all these divine prophets were united with each other, Why should we disagree? We are the followers of those holy souls. In the same manner that the prophets loved each other, we should follow their example, for we are all the servants of God and the bounties of the Almighty are encircling everyone.
Editor’s Note: Mr. Teikichi Satow is President of the Satow Industrial Chemical Research Institute of Tokyo, Japan, President of the Society for Religious Study, and a delegate to the Institute of Pacific Relations held in Honolulu last July. His address, which follows, was given at one of the Pan-Pacific luncheons which are held weekly in Honolulu, and which are attended by representatives of all races.
THE THING that most forcibly impresses me in the ever increasing beauty of this beautiful island, is particularly the beautiful vegetation. Among your foliage you have red, blue, pink, purple and what not, large and small, but what impressed me most is that all these varied kinds of foliage are under the blessing of the sunshine of one Source. Just as we find botanical varieties on this island with different colors and of different varieties, I am happy to see the smiling faces of many different races in this land. As I look at the beautiful plants, I see them always looking up towards heaven while sending down their roots deep into the ground. But as I turn to the matter of races of mankind, I come to the question of why there are so many problems among us, so much perplexity. My direct intuition in this matter of various racial problems is that men refuse to look up to the highest divinity as the plants look up to the sunshine. Even in Japan we have the idea of universal brotherhood, but I believe there is no brotherhood unless men come to realize the common fatherhood of one Supreme Being. The biggest problem we have to consider is not so much how to know this Great Reality but how to live as a great family of the universe, recognizing one supreme head as the head of our international family. I wish to illustrate this point by using a scientific figure of speech.
The universe is evolving from an unstable state to a settled condition; from unsettled darkness to a state of love and light. From the standpoint of geometry, one point of love is very unstable, and can be shaken by a very minute force. From our standpoint, egoism or self-centeredness is that point I refer to, which I call a point of love. Should we create another point in this universe, we shall be able to draw a line between these points and on this line we will find the stability of love. This is the love of family or domestic love, not centered in the one but embracing two points. Even this line of love of two points is not quite sufficient as yet to establish our international brotherhood, but I believe it ought to be based on three points, the three points of self, others, and society, and on this one plane of social love, we shall be able to see that love is a blessing through these three points of one plane. But even this love, from the standpoint of ultimate stability of peace and brotherhood, is far from being sufficiently deep enough for mankind. It is still too superficial. The reason why we have so many problems not only in the Pacific area but throughout the world is that our love is confined to these three points that I mentioned. Our love must advance ahead, far ahead, of this three point line. We have a point of self, of others, of the community and together with these points we should have another point looking to the Supreme Being so that on these points we shall be able to draw a figure with the depths as well as the heights. Should we evolve a triangle having another point as its cone vortex and revolve the three points around that, we shall be able to have a sphere such as a glove, and the circle is the symbol of perfection.
Just as the substance of the universe, organic as well as inorganic, is all attracted
by one center and that is the reason for our stability on this earth, so it is with our loves—one plane in this three-point love having its center in the Great Reality and revolving around this center is the one condition of stable life. Just as this planetary system revolves around the one center, so all mankind revolves around one center being centered in the Great Reality and having the consciousness that the sum of this great reality is the sole reason for eternal life and peace.
The fundamental problem today is not so much international salvation as individual salvation. I feel that the realization of universal peace must come to this point if we are to bring universal peace and love.
Just as I mentioned at the outset, that as we have variety of foliage all looking up to one supreme source of power and light, that we should all look up to God in Heaven as being the source of mercy and power and then alone will we have international peace and brotherhood.
Editor's Note:
The author of this article is a Bahá'í girl who came from Persia to this country under picturesque circumstances to acquire a western education and then to return to her country to assist her sisters. She is now accomplishing a notable work for the women of Persia, having organized in Tihran, the ”Woman’s Society for Progress,” an organization which is one of the forward movements of today.
I BELIEVE the thing that makes a social life worthy of the name is absolute freedom, and that does not exist here. In Persia many live in fear of some group mightier than themselves, hence deception is practiced more or less. They know a thing is right, but they are afraid to say so, and I have come to believe with all my heart that they have a right to be afraid as long as they live in this corrupt environment. I once thought it was nothing but mere cowardice not to show one’s own true self in all cases. I will take all that back now.
Another great asset to social life is the commingling of men and women. This has been impossible among city people; in fact, among all the Persians except a small group of wanderers called “Shah-savan.” There has been a great barrier between men and women, and this has consequently created a queer kind of a life for both sexes.
Listen to the life history of a woman in Persia; it is very interesting. As soon as she is born the helpless little thing is hidden behind the mother’s back because she is a girl. And because she understands nothing of what has happened her poor mother gets the scolding for her birth. Even her father nags at and scorns his wife for committing this “sin,” namely, bringing forth a girl.
Well, the meek little babe grows up, whether or no, but she is constantly made conscious of the fact that she is a girl, different from, and in almost all cases, not as good as the boy. Now she is told she should not laugh so loud, and again she should not play so much, because she is a girl. When she reaches five or six years of age she is taught to put on a “Chadur” (a black robe covering her from head to foot). She is closely veiled and by the time she is eight or nine no man must look upon her face.
Thus she grows up within the four walls of the house, practically never going out except for a bath, learning a little housework and some sort of needlework. Reading and writing has been forbidden
for a woman by the religious leaders. It is a common belief, even now among certain people, that a girl who can read and write will fall in love, which is a dreadful sin—falling in love with anyone before marriage. The parents must choose the husband and marry her off, often at the age of seven. Does it not seem like a crime, but what is there for the little girl to do? She does not study, has no Sunday school to go to, no campfire or girl scout societies, nor any hope except stepping into a married life. When she is married she is allowed to go to weddings, funerals and some dinner parties with her mother and sisters-in-law, but she must always be home before sunset.
And what does her husband do, you will want to know? He goes about his business all day. And does he come home in the evening? He may, but he gets very tired of sitting around and doing nothing till supper time, which is late in the evening. A woman with the training above described cannot be a social companion of her husband, who is in practically all cases much older and, of course, more learned than she. So he comes home only when he has a guest, whom he entertains in the "Beroonie."* If he has no guest to bring along, he stays out as long as possible, taking promenades on the avenues, going to shows, if there are any, visiting his friends, etc.
What is the poor woman doing? Nothing. She has prepared her supper, and is now sitting around nodding and waiting the footsteps of her husband, her lord and master. Does she not go for a walk or to a show with her husband? No. It is forbidden for a woman to walk with a man on the street or to ride with one in a carriage, even though it be her husband. And as for going to a show, its very mention is a crime. It is sinful
* Persian houses are built so that they have two apartments; an inner apartment called the “Anderoonie” for the women, and another one or “Beroonie” for the men.
for a woman to see a show or listen to music. Can the woman go to special women’s societies and listen to talks or lectures? There are no such societies in existence here. But what can she do, poor unhappy creature? Oh, yes, she can do some things. She is allowed, and in fact encouraged, to go to “Tazieh” and “Rouzeh.” In the “Tazieh” they rehearse the tragedy and martyrdom of Hossain by acting on the stage; in the “Rouzeh” they tell the story of the martyrdom in the pulpit. She is allowed to listen to these, to scream at the top of her voice, while pulling her hair and scratching her face, weeping and howling.
There is still another thing she can do. She can make pilgrimages to sanctified places, of which there are milliards in Persia, an example of which is the miraculous water tank which caused the tragic and unhappy death of the revered soul, Major Imbrie, whose story is well known.
Such is the social life of the average woman here in Persia. Are you not feeling dizzy at reading things that you would never dream could exist today? But rejoice, my dear friends, and know that these conditions are rapidly passing away. In fact, they started to pass away eighty-three years ago with the beginning of the Bahá'í Era, when Kurratu’l-Ayn unveiled herself, suffered much for the equality of man and woman, and was finally martyred.
At the present time in the Bahá'í world conditions are just the opposite of what has been described. The little baby girl is just as welcome as the boy. She is given the same education, in so far as possible, as the boy. She must choose her own husband, is never married under fifteen, and seldom under twenty. She does not go to "Tazieh" or "Rouzeh,” but she goes to Bahá'í meetings and conferences, where she gives talks and listens to talks and to the Words of God. Of late she even goes with her husband to special group gatherings of men and women, where she hears enlightening subjects read and discussed.
In other words, the Bahá'í woman in Persia has arisen to serve her kind, and she is doing it with great courage, either in school or in the home, training young and old. Because of lack of the freedom mentioned above, the Bahá'ís are rather slow, but what they do is having a great influence on the Moslems, especially in Tihran, where they have even started public schools for girls.
IT is well nigh universally conceded that mankind is in transition to a higher plane. We are living in the prophesied day of judgment, in the dawn of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness which will drive away the mists and miasma, the superstitions and delusions impeding humanity's progress. This enlightenment is inevitable; it has been divinely decreed. The Bahá'í Revelation makes it clear. We are in the beginning of a new universal cycle, during which the world will attain maturity and the events of the preceding cycle be almost forgotten. “We are in the cycle which began with Adam, and its universal Manifestation is Bahá’u’lláh.”
These spiritual cycles are analogous to and governed by the same laws as those in the physical realm, the revolutions of the suns and planets. Souls who have attained to a spiritual vision are undisturbed by the turmoil, the commotion, the hatreds, the destruction and suffering incident to the wrecking of obsolete institutions and clearing the ground for the home of a redeemed humanity. Those, however, who are lacking in spiritual insight and submerged in materiality, see chaos in the reconstruction which is in progress.
There are a goodly number who admit the desirability of a state wherein happiness is based upon justice, observance of the Golden Rule and the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, but deny the possibility of "the consummation devoutly wished for” because of a suppositious barrier in the pathway which they style “human nature.” The assertion that there can be no harmony in the relations of mankind while “human nature remains as it is,” is reiterated in public speech and on printed page, usually followed by the assumption that this so-called “human nature” is a “fixed quantity” and therefore the condition of mankind will never be greatly changed.
But in reality there is no such thing as “human nature.” The law governing nature permits nothing to be “fixed." In man’s evolution there must be decomposition as well as regeneration, necessitating the modifications, the changes, in what is erroneously called “human nature.” Until a man is “born again"—that is, changes his desires in conformity with an enlarged consciousness, he is not a human being. He may be educated and polished in a wordly sense. While he believes in competition and that he can find enjoyment at the expense of his fellow man, he is far from the Kingdom of God, from being “created in His image.”
The redeemed person realizes the Oneness of God and of humanity. He is a new being; his past is forgotten; he cannot recall it; he looks upon it as an unpleasant dream, a nightmare. He has a new motive for living. The things that were on his right hand side are now on the left.
Prior to the second birth, in every man there is a Doctor Jekyll and a Mister Hyde—a combat between indulgence and restraint, sensuality and spirituality. The story symbolizes the struggle of unregenerated man in the evolution to the higher plane. As long as he is double-minded, he is unstable in all his ways, although he has the power to choose between good and evil (illustrated in Stevenson’s story by the taking of a powder to bring about the change in personality). The criminal Mister Hyde was smaller in physique than the respected Doctor Jekyll. This is true of humanity in the mass. Were it contrariwise, mankind would destroy each other off the face of the earth. By repeatedly giving way to the base desires we lessen the power of resisting, and finally descend to the abyss.
Apparently the change in personality often takes place suddenly, though it is
doubtless the resultant of past reflection and meditation. Every person who has taken an interest in spiritual growth can recall instances of this sort. A young man addicted to drink, tobacco, gambling and profanity, attended religious services one evening and was deeply moved by the exhortation of a fervent evangelist. He left the building with two boon companions, and in passing a cemetery drew from his pocket a pint bottle of whiskey, a package of tobacco, a pipe and a deck of cards and threw them over the fence into a clump of bushes, remarking, “I’m through with this life!” He became a member of the church, a Bible student, and in a few months entered upon his life work as an evangelist. His alleged human nature had undergone a radical change.
The Hawaiians furnish a concrete example of a remarkable change in character. When white men first set foot on the islands the natives were ferocious cannibals. Owing to their location, intercourse with so-called civilized people for a number of years was exclusively with missionaries who did not bring with them the vices, liquor, gambling, etc., of the white people. In a short time the natives became gentle and kind, exemplarily devout and musical.
A few years ago I read the experience of the crew of a ship wrecked on an island of the Pacific ocean. An old seaman predicted that they had made their last sea voyage. A crew of which he was a member had been cast ashore on this island twenty years before and all save he eaten by cannibals. With dire forebodings and heavy hearts they slyly crept up the highland, under his direction, to an opening in the forest imparting a view of a clutter of native huts as he remembered it. He ascended the hill, and to his astonishment gazed upon a village of frame houses with a church spire in the center. Jubilant, he shouted to his comrades, “Come on, boys, we’re safe!” Through the benign influence of consecrated teachers the nature and customs of the man-eaters had been changed.
The “second birth,” ’Abdu’l-Bahá tells us, purifies the reality of man from evil qualities: anger, passion, worldliness, pride, lying, hypocrisy, fraud, self-love, etc. It cannot take place until the teachings of the Manifestation of God are obeyed and mankind acquires sinlessness. Essential sinlessness belongs to the universal Manifestations, the Divine Teachers, the Founders of Religions, “who declare God,” reflect His attributes and in their respective cycles give to those “who receive them the power to become the sons of God.”
The mission and teachings of the Harbingers of the cycles are identical. All proclaim the existence of one God, the Creator and Overruling Power without a rival, and that the destiny of humanity is to live on the earth in friendship and harmony unified in bonds of the love of God and of His creatures. In the early days of the cycles while these truths are accepted by the believers without mental reservations, rapid progress is made in sciences and arts and in the acquirement of attributes which tend to spiritual uplift and happiness.
In the infancy of mankind belief in a plurality of gods is well nigh universal. The early advocates of government by the immediate direction of God had continual strife with the polytheists. The Old Testament abounds with accounts of this warfare. One after another the idols of wood and stone were relegated to oblivion until God had but one rival in the government of the world, personified as the “Devil” or “Satan,” the adversary of man. He strove constantly with God for domination.
But the Bahá’í Teachings show that Evil is not an entity to be destroyed by force, but the absence of the good, to be overcome by obedience to the WORD enunciated by the Manifestations of God. Heaven is a spiritual state which can be attained on earth, and the soul is not
denied progress after ceasing to manifest through the body. We are instructed to pray for our acquaintances and loved ones who have passed on into the spirit realm.
The Bahá’í Teachings are in accord with the dictums of the philosophers and writers on sociology, that “human well being is in accordance with the Divine Will,” and the perfect law revealed by the Divine Manifestation is the only safe guide. This law cannot be fulfilled by imperfect men. “Imperfection is merely another word for disobedience.” The mission of the Prophet is to set in motion the agencies which work out social changes. He is to be implicitly obeyed. Herbert Spencer says, “In teaching a uniform unquestioning obedience (to the Divine Law) does an entirely abstract philosophy become one with true religion."
In other words, Science and Religion will be in agreement.
In Ottawa there is a beautiful castle, the Chateau Laurier, set high on the steep bank of a river. The interior is richly furnished and decorated with artistically carved Austrian Oak; every suite is a harmony of color and design; and the views from the windows of each wing, all having quite different aspects, are such as remain in the memory to provide many pleasant recollections at less favored times in other climes.
One may walk into this marble palace unmolested, sit in a luxurious chair and look out toward the little town of Hull, nestling between the opposite shore of the river and a distant range of hills which form an undulating horizon. Here one may watch the gold and fire of the sunset contrasting with the azure sky and the darkening shadows creeping over the city–watch the cathedral bells swaying in the towers as they peal out their pulsing harmony, and listen to their peace-giving chime as it floats up through the still evening air across the softly flowing river.
Here, if one has the sensibility to perceive and receive them, are beauty and peace to be freely enjoyed.
Now, to the readers of this magazine, the significance of the above preamble is this: The Bahá’í Cause is like that beautiful castle. Each prospect is a panorama of Universal Principles on which depends the happiness of the world, and the interior is none other than the Sun of Truth.
And just as one may freely enter and for a time enjoy the beauties of the castle, but must have the wherewithal to stay, so must the truth seeker, philosopher and student be prepared to pay for a permanent place in the new era. One may call himself, a Bahá'í, mystic, or whatsoever he will until the end of time, but not avert the invincible hand of the Law from placing him in the only station for which he has paid, nor be able to take up his residence unearned in the Boundless Mansion.
There is one price. It is the individual contribution to unity by elimination of self-interest. And this depends upon the state of the treasury of the heart, which must be filled with longing. The heart must be a bank in which we have opened an account of earnest desire on which to draw at will. One of the great fundamentals of the Bahá’í Cause is unity–desire for oneness with God and all His children; and in this, as in other matters, we have our example, for is it not recorded that ’Abdu’l-Bahá continuously longed for the unity of hearts? At midnight
on the plain hard bed in prison, or under the star-clustered canopy, he was longing; at dawn on the housetop his breast was dilated by the heart so filled with longing; in the glare of day amongst the sick and the crowding poor he was longing–longing for the opening of their hearts to a desire for similar longing, which is one way to become entitled to the bounties of the celestial kingdom.
Almost without ceasing he cried from the depths: “Give to them all the spirit of the heavenly glad-tidings and make them alive! Impassionate them with longing!”
When the heart is breaking with longing for oneness, with the burning desire for the divine influx from which all good follows, then we are rich in the coinage of the new realm. When we would rather die than be a cause of grief to anyone, when we have the self-control to refuse to gossip and distrust or to react with hate for hate, then we have gold and silver indeed–the philosopher’s stone which transmutes all things. But this is impossible without an extended schooling in the art of longing.
“When the lamp of search, effort, longing, fervor, love, rapture, attraction and devotion is enkindled in the heart, and the breeze of love blows forth from the direction of Unity, the darkness of error, doubt and uncertainty will be dispelled and the lights of Knowledge and assurance will encompass all the pillars of existence.”
On this depends the freedom from racial and religious prejudice; on this depends the willingness to admit of the equality of the sexes, the development of a universal consciousness, the amity of capital and labor; from this will also come the irresistible demand for an international auxiliary language to ensure mutual understanding; it is the “open sesame” to the oneness of humanity, and no international court can be successful without this longing in the hearts of the individual representatives.
All the disappointments, the chagrin, the vexations, wars and difficulties of this earth life are lessons in the school of the supreme art—that of turning all our attachments to things into a hunger for Truth. They are the preparation of the heart for the graduation exercises.
We go on from one grade to another until one day we answer correctly, prove our understanding of first principles, and begin to long for sympathetic union with all other souls-to be “one soul in many bodies.” This is the individual spiritual graduation, the new birth.
But this graduation, like the intellectual one at college, is merely the beginning of the new life. Success has yet to be attained. As it is written: “Then strive with your life to be distinguished among all people by deeds.” We must ever be wooers of Truth, and the successful new life is one of continuous unqualified dedication of effort, time and desire.
“Sacrifice thou in the path of God the thing which is most beloved by thee.” It is comparatively easy to dedicate certain things which have no element of sacrifice–but it is not easy to consecrate desire in all its aspects.
With many people love itself is a problem. Human love is so apt to be selfish and absorbing. But let this be reversed, or, in other words, let love manifest unselfishly and with detachment; let a longing to sacrifice for another motivate one’s actions, then one may become an instrument of tremendous good resulting in constructive efforts in behalf of all humanity.
It is simple, but unless one is ready to let go of self, how difficult!
To orient love is simply to change the direction of the compass of the heart so that the indicator will show love and goodwill for all humanity.
Success is mastery in the art of longing, in the ability to submerge self-interest and to prefer the advancement of all others to one's self.
--PHOTO--
A group of Bahá'í friends in Áváshiq, a village near Baghdad, Iraq (see opposite page).
THE great interest surrounding the picture on the opposite page is from the fact that this group belongs to the race which has followed the Muhammadan religion for so many centuries, and which has been its most zealous guardian. That these people have become converts to the Bahá’í religion is a very wonderful thing for it means that in doing so they have opened themselves to the Teachings of all the Prophets and Messengers of God, constituting themselves thereby brothers to the Christian world. Especially are they tied in the bonds of blessed spiritual love with the Bahá’ís the world over. An American visiting this or like communities of Bahá'ís in that part of the world are received with the greatest love and affection as absolute brothers.
The reader can see at a glance the extreme racial and oriental quality of these people. The greatest scholars of today are wondering how we can bridge the gulf existing between our western civilization and these people of Asia who are so fixed and fanatical in their customs and religious rites as to be at such great variance with the advancement of. the western world and its modernism.
To those who have accepted the Bahá’í Teachings, this living of the life of brotherhood is the reality of religion. They believe that–
“His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh, is the Collective Center of unity for all mankind. He founded the oneness of humanity in Persia. . . . From this foundation shines forth the radiance of spirituality which is unity, the love of God, the knowledge of God, praiseworthy morals, and the virtues of the human world. Bahá’u’lláh renewed these principles, just as the coming of spring refreshes the earth and confers new life upon all phenomenal beings. . . .”
“In the Orient the various peoples and nations were in a state of antagonism and strife, manifesting the utmost enmity and hatred toward one another. Darkness encompassed the world of mankind. At such a time as this, Bahá’u’lláh appeared. He removed all the imitations and prejudices which had caused separation and misunderstanding, and laid the foundation of the one religion of God. When this was accomplished, Muhammadans, Christians, Jews, Zoroastraians, Buddhists—all were united in actual fellowship and love. The souls who followed Bahá'u'lláh from every nation have become as one family, living in agreement and accord, willing to sacrifice life for each other. The Muhammadan will give his life for the Christian, the Christian for the Jew, and all of them for the Zoroastrian. They live together in love, fellowship and unity. They have attained to the condition of rebirth in the spirit of God. They have become revivified and regenerated through the breaths of the Holy Spirit. . . . The people of the nations who have accepted him as the Standard of Divine Guidance enjoy a condition of actual fellowship and love. If you should attend a meeting in the East you could not distinguish between Christian and Mussulman; you would not know which was Jew, Zoroastrian or Buddhist, so completely have they become fraternized and their religious differences been leveled. They associate in the utmost love and spiritual fragrance as if they belonged to one family, as if they were one people.”
This record of accomplishment, quoted from the writings of ’Abdu'l-Bahá, indicates what will be the result in the future when the circle of unity is widened until all come under the banner of the love of God; and the oneness of mankind becomes accepted and fully comprehended. This will insure the "Mort Great Peace" of the world. "Blessed are the peacemakers,” truly, for in this glad New Era they are envisioning the civilization of the future–material and divine–which shall make of this world a garden and a paradise.–(M. H.)
THE MOST important principle of divine philosophy is the oneness of the world of humanity, the unity of mankind, the bond conjoining east and west, the tie of love which blends human hearts.
Therefore it is our duty to put forth our greatest efforts and summon all our energies in order that the bonds of unity and accord may be established among mankind. For thousands of years we have had bloodshed and strife. It is enough; it is sufficient. Now is the time to associate together in love and harmony. For thousands of years we have tried the sword and warfare; let mankind for a time at least live in peace. Review history and consider how much savagery, how much bloodshed and battle the world has witnessed. It has been either religious warfare, political warfare or some other clash of human interests. The world of humanity has never enjoyed the blessing of Universal Peace. Year by year the implements of warfare have been increased and perfected. Consider the wars of past centuries; only ten, fifteen or twenty thousand at the most were killed but now it is possible to kill one hundred thousand in a single day. In ancient times warfare was carried on with the sword, today it is the smokeless gun. Formerly battleships were sailing vessels; today they are dreadnoughts. Consider the increase and improvement in the weapons of war. God has created us all human and all countries of the world are parts of the same globe. We are all his servants. He is kind, just to all. Why should we be unkind and unjust to each other? He provides for all. Why should we deprive one another? He protects and preserves all. Why should we kill our fellow-creatures? If this warfare and strife be for the sake of religion, it is evident that it violates the spirit and basis of all religion. All the divine manifestations have proclaimed the oneness of God and the unity of mankind. They have taught that men should love and mutually help each other in order that they might progress. Now if this conception of religion be true, its essential principle is the oneness of humanity. The fundamental truth of the manifestations is peace. This underlies all religion, all justice. The divine purpose is that men should live in unity, concord and agreement and should love one another. Consider the virtues of the human world and realize that the oneness of humanity is the primary foundation of them all. Read the gospel and the other holy books. You will find their fundamentals are one and the same. Therefore unity is the essential truth of religion and when so understood embraces all the virtues of the human world. Praise be to God! this knowledge has been spread, eyes have been opened and ears have become attentive. Therefore we must endeavor to promulgate and practice the religion of God which has been founded by all the Prophets. And the religion of God is absolute love and unity.
NOTICE: The business management of The Bahá’í Magazine has been transferred to Washington, D. C., in accordance with the decision of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada, with Allen B. McDaniel as Business Manager. Please note that the Business Office address will hereafter be 706 Otis Bldg., Washington, D. C.
