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| VOL. 21 | DECEMBER, 1930 | NO. 9 |
| Page | |
Editorial, Stanwood Cobb | 259 |
Chinese Culture and Baháism | 262 |
What is Truth, Thornton Chase | 267 |
What Hope Is There For Man, Shahnaz Waite | 269 |
God-Intoxicated Architecture, Dr. Frederick H. Newell | 274 |
What Do We Need of a Savior, Keith Ransom-Kehler | 280 |
Medical History and the Art of Healing—Zia M. Bagdadi, M. D. | 285 |
The Garden of the Heart, Doris McKay | 283 |
| Cover Design by VICTORIA BIDIKIAN | |
STANWOOD COBB | Editor |
MARIAM HANEY | Associate Editor |
MARGARET B. MCDANIEL | Business Manager |
Subscriptions: $3.00 per year; 25 cents a copy. Two copies to same name and address, $5.00 per year. Please send change of address by the middle of the month and be sure to send OLD as well as NEW address. Kindly send all communications and make postoffice orders and checks payable to The Baha'i Magazine, 1112 Shoreham Bldg., Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Entered as second-class matter April 9, 1911, at the postoffice at Washington, D. C., under the Act of March 3, 1897. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103 Act of October 3, 1917, authorized September 1, 1922.
--PHOTO--
Peoples of many races, creeds and nationalities from New York and surrounding cities meeting in real brotherhood at West Englewood, N. J, Jame 1930, at the Annual Commemoration of the visit and address of Ábdu'l-Bahá there in 1912.
| VOL. 21 | DECEMBER, 1930 | NO. 9 |
racial and patriotic prejudices. . . . He (Bahá’u’lláh) heralds the hour of unity which has dawned on all mankind.”
“CHINA is calling, in fact the whole world is calling for Light. That is why people are taking such an interest in these Bahá’i Principles and the books explaining them. There is a need, there is an approach, and there is a fulfillment. This is a New Message of great value; it is liberalizing, quickening. It makes religion more dynamic to solve world problems. For all this there is a need, and the deep-thinking men of China all realize this great necessity; for we cannot go back to the old stereotyped, half-dead creeds. This Bahá’i Message supplies a new ideal and the world cannot win against it,” said Dr. Y. S. Tsao, former President of Tsing Hua University, to Miss Martha L. Root, journalist and Bahá’i lecturer and teacher.*
China groping her way for Light in one of the most turbulent, chaotic and yet imminently progressive periods of her existence, would find indeed in the Bahá’i Movement an answer to all the problems which harrass her.
Here, as in fact almost universally throughout this planet, the old religious forces are crumbling. The moral sanctions and customs supported by thousands of years of religious
* See Page 262.
tradition are no longer holding Young China in the face of a thousand outside influences impinging upon them. Never deeply spiritual in temperament, the Chinese now left without even the comfort of religious habit are in great need of some guiding star for their national and racial destiny.
There are those among this vast populace who find this guiding star in Communism. There are those, and they are fortunately strong in number and influence, who find it in the Nationalism based upon the three-fold principle of democracy uttered by Sun Yat-Sen, whose ideals are near to being a religion among the zealous leaders of the Kuo Ming Tang party. Yet this is not enough, as Dr. Tsao himself acknowledges, for there are many and deeply serious problems before which the best brains of China find themselves baffled.
Nor is China alone in this danger of chaos. Not alone China, but the whole world, needs the Bahá’i Teachings. The Christian world no less than the Confucian world today faces the danger that her civilization as it is built up cannot actually survive the threat of chaos and disintegration.
The same disruptive force which has turned China into a slaughter pen, bringing to stop the wheels of progress, menaces also other nations in an alarming way. As we approach the Christmas season of peace and good-will to men we hear from Europe increasingly alarming accounts of the will-to-war.
To get rid of war is the biggest task to which mankind has ever addressed itself, said former Prime Minister Arthur Meighen of Canada at the International Conference of the World Alliance for International Friendship recently held in Washington. “We must meet the new conditions if we hope to survive. With war possible now in three dimensions weapons come into play which cannot be matched with other weapons. The only way to meet offense in this new warfare on three planes (sea, earth and air) is by reprisal. Reprisal will follow reprisal until the whole civil population are wiped out or demoralized. There can be nothing but defeat and despair to both the conquered and conqueror, and no agreement to limit destructive agents will hold in time of combat for war is itself an outlaw. The belligerent fighting for his life will stop at nothing. Necessity knows no law.
“But what of the League of Nations and the numerous peace pacts? These are praiseworthy indications of man’s will to peace,” says Mr. Meighen, “but we must not rely upon them. The absence of any provision for enforcement of the pact will tempt the nations to achieve a quick victory. During the period of these pacts has taken place a growth of armament more terrible than the world has yet
known. Within a decade of the “war to end war” we have witnessed expenditures for armament more enormous than ever before.
“Very manifestly there is nothing in the world capable of giving security against war. Something must be found. There is nothing of supreme importance in the world today save to be adequately organized against war. Nationalism must be abated. We must find those common cords of humanity that will vibrate to those who feel themselves as brothers.”
Another speaker at this Conference, Hon. Jacob Gould Schurman, former American Ambassador to Germany, said that prevention of war is assured only if nations living side by side, no matter what their differences are, never think even of resorting to war. He has put his finger on the crux of the matter. War can only be abolished when the desire for war is annihilated in the human breast, and that desire will never be annihilated until men come to think of all mankind as brothers, the welfare of all being held in equal esteem.
Ruhi Afnan, grandson of ’Abdu’l-Bahá, a graduate of the American University at Beirut and student at an English University, in an illuminating article published a few years ago in this magazine* pointed out that the world cannot accomplish reforms in the way in which it is now endeavoring to do, singling out one at a time. War cannot be abolished until national racial and religious prejudices and hatred are abolished. The Bahá’i Movement carries forward simultaneously all the principles necessary to accomplish this. Here we have a Movement
* Vol. 17, P. 10.
which at the same time establishes a universal religious consciousness; an actual world brotherhood as deep and earnest and effective as the world has ever known within the heretofore limited fields of sectarianism; a will-to-peace springing from the sentiment of the sacredness of human life (to be killed is better than to kill, says Bahá’u’lláh) and founded effectively upon the Parliament of Man. These principles are accepted in toto by every adherent of the Bahá’i Cause. Every one who becomes an adherent of the Bahá’i Cause, whether cultured or uncultured, whether erstwhile enlightened and tolerant or bigoted and ruthless, becomes thereby an active agent for world peace.
Where else can one find in the world today a Movement which like this can actually offer security against war? A Movement capable of drawing into its fold Christian, Buddhist, Muhammadan, Jew and atheist, as regards religious cleavage;
and of the classes of men, every type of intelligence and every degree of education from the illiterate and fanatical tribesmen of Persia to the college professor and scientist, nay, even, the rulers of Christendom.
The European and American worlds, though at present moving smoothly in the ordinary channels of civilization, are in no situation to be hypercritical regarding the chaos in China. Let us extend to that great people who are sincerely striving toward better government, customs and religion, the hand of brotherhood. Let us not continue to teach them the arts of war and force them to use those arts for their own national safety. Let us rather offer them this Golden Gift of the Bahá’i Teaching which is, if they could but see it, the greatest means today for their advancement and repose, as indeed it is for the advancement and repose of the Occident.
“China, China, China, Chinaward the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh must march! Where is that holy sanctified Bahá’i to become the teacher of China! China has most great capability. The Chinese people are most simple-hearted and truth-seeking. The Bahá’i teacher of the Chinese people must first be imbued with their spirit; know their sacred literature; study their national customs and speak to them from their own standpoint, and their own terminologies. He must entertain no thought of his own, but ever think of their spiritual welfare. In China one can teach many souls and train and educate such divine personages each one of whom may become the bright candle of the world of humanity. Truly, I say they are free from deceit and hypocrisies and are prompted with ideal motives.
“Had I been feeling well, I would have taken a journey to China myself! China is the country of the future. I hope the right kind of teacher will be inspired to go to that vast empire to lay the foundation of the Kingdom of God, to promote the principles of divine civilization, to unfurl the banner of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, and to invite the people to the Banquet of the Lord!”
THE Bahá’i Movement is beginning to bring a new orientation in China, this wonderful nation with 500,000,000 souls. What China does later, may have its effect in every country of the globe. If she should become a military nation, who can say, how with one-fourth of the population of the globe involved, she might be the balance that would sink all civilizations. If China comes out strongly for Bahá’u’lláh’s universal principles she might lead the world, in a century or two, to a new undreamed of international co-operation! Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the “George Washington of China,” the immortal Father of the new Republic, listened with interest to the Bahá’i Teachings when I met him in Canton in 1924. He asked to have two Bahá’i books sent to him. He was a great idealist; his program was based on cooperation rather than on competition, and his ultimate aim was universal peace.
Visiting Canton again in September, 1930, five years after the passing of this great man, I had the honor to meet His Excellency Chen Ming-Shu, the Governor of Kwangtung Province. He was formerly one of the great generals of China; he has stood at the front and faced death many times. He is a man of Vision and one who thinks deeply. He said: “I did not know much about this Bahá’i Movement until you sent me a booklet two days ago,
--PHOTO--
His Excellency Chen Ming-Shu, Governor of Kwangtung Province.
but as I read it, I believe Bahá’u’lláh was a Prophet and China has need of a Prophet in these days. Such Teachings at their lowest estimate could not harm any nation and at their highest they could do a great good in China and in every other country. No nation is more fitted to receive these Teachings than China, for the base of Chinese civilization is universal peace. Just now we are going through great disturbances, but when China is righted and we are on an equal footing with other nations, China will take her place in all international welfare.”
Governor Chen Ming-Shu, although he is such a busy man, visits the schools and sometimes speaks to the students just as did the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Governor Chen knows which schools are the most progressive, which teachers have the broadest outlook, and no one realizes more than he that no force can convert China into peace. The ideal alone can conquer in the end.
WHILE in Shanghai, the writer
had the joy of meeting again Dr.
Y. S. Tsao, former President of
Tsing Hua University (this is the
Boxer Indemnity Institution). He
is one of the keenest educationists
in China and a distinguished
writer of Chinese affairs. Speaking
with him about the relation of
Chinese culture to the Bahá’i
Movement, he stated among other
points: “An analysis of Chinese
culture shows that the Eastern
philosophers when in trouble dig
deep down into their souls. This
Bahá’i Movement is a new way of
‘digging down’ and the Teachings
supply the help they are seeking.
China is calling, in fact the whole
world is calling for Light. That is
why people are taking such an interest
in these Bahá’i Principles
and the books explaining them.
There is a need, there is an approach,
and there is a fulfillment.
This is a new Message of great
value; it is liberalizing, quickening.
It makes religion more dynamic
to solve world problems. For
all this there is a need, and the
deep-thinking men of China all realize
this great necessity; for we
cannot go back to the old stereotyped,
half-dead creeds. This
Bahá’i Message supplies a new
--PHOTO--
Dr. Y. S. Tsao, one of the great educationists of China, who is graciously assisting in the publication of the Chinese version of Dr. J. E. Esslemont's book, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era.”
ideal and the world cannot win against it. The older religions may struggle on till they are dead: they may never attain to the goal of accepting this. The world may sink farther and farther down until it drinks the last dregs and then it will come up again. Chinese history has been like that. After a number of years of suffering some ruler or teacher appears and for several hundred years there is progress. Then a relapse comes, but in these modern times China cannot afford a relapse. Confucius himself taught that about every five hundred years or so a great teacher or reformer will come.
“These Bahá’i Teachings carry universality and supply the educational, the economic and the social solutions for this new epoch,” said Dr. Tsao. “Not alone China, but
the whole world needs these Teachings. China needs them specially because her leaders are groping for Light.”
“How will the Chinese people take these Teachings? I sometimes ask myself,” he continued, “among the Eastern people there are some that take religion much more seriously than does the West or China. People of the Near East and many in Central Asia make religion their very life, they are desperate in their religion. My question is will the Chinese people take this Bahá’i Movement so seriously as the peoples of the Near East? According to history in the past, the Chinese people have rarely taken religion so very earnestly unless it was encouraged by government or by some sovereign. Judging from the modern spirit of the new rulers in China, they have learned so many and modern Western ideas that the present Government and its leaders have not yet looked to a religious teacher or a new religious movement to help in the solution of China’s affairs. However, they have not made as rapid improvement in the direction of the affairs of state as they had hoped, so the earnest thinkers and leaders who are endeavoring to dig deeper into the human soul, and looking for a guiding spirit from the spiritual Heaven, might appreciate and understand the value of this new Message from Bahá’u’lláh, inasmuch as this new movement not only fulfills the needs of the present day, but supplies as well an ideal for the future of mankind. Through their sufferings, through their wanderings, the Chinese people may see a Light here.”
--PHOTO--
Dr. C. T. Wang, Minister of Foreign Affairs in China.
Dr. Tsao graciously is assisting in the publication of the Chinese version of “Bahá’u’lláh And The New Era,” a Western book written by Dr. J. E. Esslemont, giving the history and the Teachings of the Bahá’i Movement.
“Common sense which runs like a thread through China’s long history,“ said Mr. Yeh Kung-cho former Minister of Communications, “shows that the common ideal of China is the peace of the world. Much literature condemning war had been written by China’s thinkers. She entertains no wild ambitions towards any other country, so when her house is put in order, she will stand ready to cooperate with the world in material and human resources according to her former traditional spirit and morality.”
Dr. C. T. Wang, Minister of Foreign
Affairs was in his office in the capital, Nanking, and when I asked him about China’s aim for world peace he answered! “We have always stood for world peace. We have never been an aggressive power, this has been an historical fact for four thousand years. We have stood for cultural and peaceful development; the Mongolian race fought, but not the Chinese. If we have something good, we let the world have it, if it wishes, but we have never forced our customs or laws on other people. We never conquered Japan, never intended to, but they took our written language and our culture.” When I spoke of the French Revolution by way of comparison, saying that it took that country small as it is when one thinks of China’s vast millions, one hundred years to restore peace, he said: “Times are different now, it will not take China one hundred years to develop peace in her domains.”
Dr. Paul Linebarger, legal adviser to the National Government of China called upon me at my hotel in Nanking. He said that he had worked for eighteen years with the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen and that the latter’s great aim was universal peace. Dr. Linebarger, who was given the degree of Doctor of Laws in the National Central University the week I was in Nanking (and this honor has only been bestowed upon one other scholar either Chinese or foreign in this young University) said to me: “You Bahá’is are most welcome in China. We like to see you introducing the Bahá’i Teachings here.”
The Minister of Education, Dr. Mon-lin Chiang, who studied in the
University of California in 1912 and took his Ph. D. degree in Columbia University, has always specialized in education. He said that since the revolution in 1911, several times there have been two governments, but education has never disintegrated. During all this time instructions about education could be sent to any province. I asked Dr. Chiang about the teaching of religion in the schools, because at the moment there is a great furor among the foreign missionaries. He answered: “So far as the public schools are concerned there is no teaching of religion in these schools; it is the same as in America. We go a step farther and include the private schools no matter by whom established, whether by private individuals, societies or missionary organizations; in the lower schools below junior middle school no religious training shall be given. However, above junior middle school, and this means the normal schools, colleges and universities where students are old enough to think for themselves—religious teaching is optional. Teachers cannot enforce attendance. The missionaries are too drastic, but our program is much more moderate than in some countries.”
I gave Dr. Chiang one or two books about the Bahá’í Principles and we spoke of Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings and what the new universal education should be. All great educationists are interested in these Teachings which proves what Dr. Tsao said that the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh offer a new solution for education, and the economic and social welfare of mankind. These solutions have not been
brought forward in former religions. The great universities of China just as the Western universities were opened to lectures on these Principles. Their International Clubs also arranged for more talks. The writer spoke to two thousand young men in the National Central University in Nanking, October sixth, on “International Education For the New Age,” a lecture based on Bahá’u’lláh’s plan for the new universal education. The Chancellor in his letter said: “You are heartily invited to give us a speech.” After the lecture in Hong Kong University which was well attended and enthusiastic, a beautiful girl of nineteen years came forward and asked what she could do to promote the Bahá’i Cause in Singapore, her home city. They said she is one of the brightest girls in the university, and whatever life-work she undertakes she will bring to it extraordinary capacity.
There is absolutely no prejudice in China. They are open to investigate truth. The Director of Broadcasting in Canton said that the people of China would be very interested in these universal principles. Three lectures were given over the radio, and the “Canton Municipal Daily News” in its issue of September 23, 1930, had two full pages with photograph of ’Abdu’l-Bahá in the Special Supplement Section. On these two pages were (1) a story about the visit to Canton; (2) Lecture broadcast on “New Universal Education; (3) “Esperanto As a Universal Auxiliary Language” and (4) the broadcast speech on “What Is the Bahá’i Movement?”
The speech broadcasted in Hong Kong was given in full in six newspapers the following morning.
The West on the other hand, could with profit examine the basic foundation of Chinese culture and ask itself whether the great civilizations of China contain elements which can contribute toward international cooperation. China has seen the rise and fall of many dynasties, China has had her discoverers and inventors, men of fine arts, philosophers and poets and scholars, while we in the Occident were still savages on the plains. Highest of all, China had the great sage and Prophet Confucius, born in 551 B. C. who taught the central doctrine of being sincere in thought so as to rectify the heart, to cultivate the person, to order well the state, and to pacify the world. He taught also that all within the four seas are brothers.
According to the School of Physiocrats, one writer says: “The whole teaching of Confucius aimed at restoring to human nature that first radiance that first beauty, which it had received from Heaven, and which had become obscured by ignorance and passion. He therefore exhorted his countrymen to obey the Lord of Heaven, to honor and fear him, to love their neighbors as themselves, to overcome their inclinations, never to make passion the measure of action, but rather to subject it to reason, and not to do or think or say anything contrary to reason.” The essential part still remains to be done, to bind it upon the brows of earth, and this was the task of Confucius, to bring men back to the original
divine state of nature. What has happened to China in the lapse from Confucius’ teachings, has similarly come upon the West in its neglecting to live the teachings of Jesus Christ. These great Prophets and Manifestations—and such an One is Bahá’u’lláh—come to this earth from age to age to “renew religion,” and Their Teachings carry the great Creative Power to change men’s hearts and lead them up.
Just as I am finishing this thought, at six o’clock this morning, here in Shanghai, I see with my very eyes a symbol of what the Bahái Teachings will do for China. From my high window, I view the black clouds over China, over the sea and over the Yangtse River. It
looks as if it would be a day of “night” and depression; but something is happening behind this grim, floating blackness: a mighty orb of light steadily arises behind all this, and slowly but surely the black clouds drop down out of sight or are melted through magic, into white beauty. It is the glorious full sun uprising in dazzling brilliance! What can withstand the rays of such a light! Today breaks into glad sunshine and all the blackness passes away and will be remembered no more. So arises Bahá’u’lláh to these thinkers of China who, in the early morning watch of a new epoch just breaking, glimpse the Sun of Truth!
The following was written some years ago and is from the unpublished letters of the author who was pronounced by ’Abdu’l-Bahá to be the first believer in America in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh.
TRUTH presents itself in the passing of the centuries in the enduring record of its effect upon civilization and the tenacity with which man clings to the channel of its expression. Its immediate proof is demonstrated in that which is the acme of miraculous expression—when through its assimilation a sinner becomes a saint. In other words, it is a complete transformer of the individual soul life.
The Water of Life, which is a symbol used to express Truth, is no shallow pool upon which we are to launch the frail toy rafts of metaphysics
and philosophies; instead, it is a boundless and bottomless ocean in which we may plunge and should immerse our entire beings, divested of every thought and concept save that which is of God.
Truth is single like light, and just as light when broken upon the cross of the prism, becomes fragmentary and disjointed and diluted, so the Light of Truth when strained through our mentalities becomes fragmentary and adulterated with our misconcepts and false imaginings, and is thereby deprived of its innate potency to influence the lives of men to spirictual attainment.
This is demonstrated in the beauty and simplicity of the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ—the Divine Light of the World—which, broken on the cross of human hatred, opposition and denial, became fragmentized in the upbuilding of different sects and cults, each calling itself by the Name of Christ and yet, by reason of these different attitudes, all of them falling short of the Christ intent.
Throughout the ages, man has been prone to take one little cup of this Water of Life and become so attached to it that it finally became for him the entire ocean;-to take one ray of the light, of the color suited to his liking—red, or green or yellow—and become so enamored of it that at last it grew to constitute for him the entire sun. Thus, the Christian holds no tolerance for any form of religion which does not teach a personal God, while the Indian philosophies reject any which does teach a personal God; the reincarnationist will accept no religion which does not teach that repeated experiences in the flesh are the only means of soul purification, and so on almost endlessly. Each thus immures himself in a fortress of his own making wherefrom he combats the approach of any with ideas contrary or different to his own. No man may rightly declare that if the Word of God be not presented in exact accordance with that which he considers the proper manner of Its appearance he will have nothing to do with It. In so doing, he withdraws himself to a dungeon with his one little ray of light and refuses to admit the larger illumination.
There was no ritual in the presentment
of the Truth by Jesus the Christ; no creed advanced by Him save that of love; no dogma save that of the oneness and singleness of God. But humanity has builded about the virgin form of Truth so great a structure of all of these, that the Great Treasure itself has now for long been almost obscured.
Many of the new sects and cults and isms and various other movements relating to the spirit have absorbed much of their doctrines from age-old Oriental philosophies which declare that man is sufficient unto himself; that within him rest the potentials for satisfying all of his needs and aspirations, to attain which he must engage in the performance of particular acts,—the leading of an ascetic life, or make positive declarations of his power and that he is a part of God and that the center of God rests within himself.
How remotely different is this to that which has been the attitude of every one of those who have come with the Real Message and the Divine Authority!
“I of myself can do nothing.” “The Word that I speak is not mine, but my Father’s that sent me.” “And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.” “The Lord is my strength and my salvation: He is my God. . . . My father’s God, and I will exalt him!” “The gales of the All-Knowing, the All-Glorious passed by me and taught me the knowledge of what hath been. This thing is not from me, but from One who is Mighty and All-Knowing.” “This is a leaf which the Breezes of the Will of thy Lord the Mighty, the Exalted, hath stirred. Can it be
still when the rushing winds blow?”
Thus all of these things which are being sought after and accepted by many as a means for the acquisition of religion may be recognized as the results of re]igion. It is not the result (the fruit) of the tree which gives it its life: nay, rather, it is the sap drawn up by the forces of attraction (love) through the pulsating arteries of being from the invisible, unattainable and unknowable fountain of the Almighty. All else is subject to decay, disease,
disintegration and death.
The Bahá’i Revelation is the Light of today. It is a call sent forth in this age for the races of men to unite these divergent streams sent forth from the Fountain of Truth to irrigate the soil of human hearts, and to recognize the single flowing of the Great River of Life, bringing all mankind to a common heritage in the ocean of the Bounty of God. Thus will be accomplished racial and religious unity, real human brotherhood and universal peace.
WHY have the great forces of evolution thundered their way through cycles of creation to produce so infinitesimal a being as material man, if this life is all, and has no other purpose than to eat, drink and be merry and tomorrow die?
Until this question is answered, so long must life at its very best be but vague and unsatisfactory; so long over all things must brood the shadow of death and decay, made more appalling by hopeless contemplation; so long must creation appear but a cruel mockery, a heartrending tragedy, and a useless farce, for which peoples and civilizations come into being only to be destroyed and to leave no trace, utter obliteration being their fate. All the work of evolution futile; scientific inventions and all education useless, and all the heart-longing and hope, vain.
What hope is there for man, imprisoned in a world which has no pity for him, whatever may be his fate? A world which goes on in precisely the same fashion whether he live or die. The glories and beauties of nature were the same when Ceasar lived and will still be the same when we who now gaze upon them have passed into the Unknown.
Of what avail then is the struggle of human life? Is it for the many or only for the few? Is all the toil and sorrow of the millions merely for the upliftment and perfecting of certain types? If so why such waste of brain and heart, of love and patience?
Only when men and women turn to the Spirit and learn that their lives are not infinitesimal, and useless but one with the Infinite; that each one possesses within himself or herself an Eternal active, conscious
individual being, a form, endowed with a Divine Energy which draws to itself and accommodates to its use, everything that is necessary for the accomplishment of its unfoldment, whether physically, mentally or spiritually; only then will it be clearly understood that nature is subject and servant of this Radiant Energy, or Soul of man, which is an eternal emanation from God, made in His image and likeness potentially, and as such has its eternal movement towards the “Eternal Highest.” Without this knowledge there is no joy, and life is purposeless.
IN THE TEACHINGS of Bahá’u’lláh,
expounded by ’Abdu’l-Bahá, we
find the answer to all of these abstruse
problems, the problems of
life and death solved, and the purpose
of this life made clear. Relative
to this subject ’Abdu’l-Bahá
has said; “How can man be content
to lead only an animal existence
when God has made him so high a
creature? All creation is made
subject to the laws of nature, but
man has been able to conquer these
laws. The sun in spite of its power
and glory is bound by the laws of
nature and cannot change its course
by so much as a hair’s breadth.
The great and mighty ocean is
powerless to change the ebb and
flow of its tides, nothing can stand
against natures laws but man.
“To man God has given such wonderful power that he can guide control and overcome nature. The natural law for man is to walk on the earth, but he makes ships and flies in the air. He is created to live on dry land, but he rides on the sea and even travels under it.
He has learned to control the power of electricity and he takes it at will and imprisons it in a lamp. The human voice is made to speak across short distances, but man’s power is such that he has made an instrument and can speak from East to West! All these examples show you how man can govern nature and how, as it were, wrest a sword from the hand of nature and use it against herself. Seeing that man has been created master of nature, how foolish it is of him to become her slave. What ignorance and stupidity it is to worship and adore nature, when God in His goodness has made us masters thereof. God’s Power is visible to all, yet men shut their eyes and see it not. The Sun of Truth is shining in all His Splendor, but man with fast shut eyes cannot behold His Glory.”*
“Some men’s lives are solely occupied with the things of this world; their minds are so circumscribed by exterior manners and traditional interests that they are blind to any other realm of existence, to the spiritual significances of all things; they think and dream of earthly fame, of material progress, sensuous delights, and comfortable surroundings bound their horizon; their highest ambition centers in success of worldly conditions and circumstances. They eat, they drink and sleep. Like the animal they have no thought beyond their own physical well being. It is true that these necessities must be dispatched. Life is a load which must be carried on while we are on earth, but the cares of the lower
* Wisdom Talks of ’Abdu’l-Baha in Paris.
things of life should not be allowed to monopolize all the thoughts and aspirations of a human being. The heart’s ambitions should ascend to a more Glorious Goal. Mental activity should rise to higher levels; men should hold in their souls the vision of Celestial Perfection and there prepare a dwelling-place for the Inexhaustible Bounty of the Divine Spirit.”*
“All around us to day we see how man surrounds himself with every modern convenience and luxury and denies nothing to the physical and material side of his nature. But take heed, lest in thinking too earnestly of the things of the body you forget the things of the soul; for material advantages do not elevate the spirit of man. Perfection in worldly things is a joy to the body of man, but in no wise does it glorify his soul. Only by improving spiritually, as well as materially can we make any real progress and become perfect beings. It was in order to bring this spiritual life and light into the world that all the Great Teachers have appeared. They came so that the Sun of Truth might be manifested and shine in the hearts of men, and through Its Wondrous Power man might attain to everlasting life.“*
“The Soul of man is eternal, immortal. . . . Man is shown to be the sum of all creation, the superior of all created beings, the goal to which countless ages of existence have progressed. At best man spends three-score years and ten in this world—a short time indeed. Does a man cease to exist when he leaves the body? If his life comes to an
* Wisdom Talks of ’Abdu’l-Baha in Paris.
end, then all the previous evaluation is useless, all has been for nothing! Can one imagine that the Creator has no greater aim than this?”*
IN A TALK given by ’Abdu’l-Bahá
in New York City, July 6th,
1912, on “Evolution”, we find a
clear and complete explanation of
“The Purpose of This Life”, and
upon reading this masterful presentation
of the subject, the salient
points may be put as Questions and
Answers as follows:
Question-What is the purpose of this life?
Answer—“To prepare one’s self for the life beyond.”
Question—What is the state of man during this life?
Answer—“Just as he prepared himself in the world of the matrix by acquiring forces necessary in this sphere of existence, so likewise the indispensable forces of the Divine Existence must be potentially attained in this world.”
Question—What is he in need of in the Kingdom which transcends the life and limitation of this mortal sphere?
Answer-“That world beyond is a world of sanctity and radiance, therefore it is necessary that in this world he should acquire these Divine Attributes. In that world there is need of spirituality, assurance, faith, the knowledge of God and the love of God. These he must attain in this world, so that after his ascension from the earthly to the heavenly Kingdom he shall find all that is needful in that life eternal ready for him.”
Question—What are the elements of that world?
Answer—“That divine world. is
manifestly a world of lights; therefore man has need of illumination here. That is a world of love; the love of God is essential. It is a world of perfections; virtues or perfections must be acquired. That world is vivified by the Breaths of the Holy Spirit; in this world we must seek them. That is the kingdom of life everlasting, it must be attained during this vanishing existence.
Question—By what means can man acquire these things? How shall he obtain the merciful gifts and powers? (Here ’Abdu’l-Bahá gives us seven steps which are like seven great Candles-sticks of Spiritual Illumination.)
Answer—”First through the knowledge of God. Second through the love of God. Third through Faith. Fourth through philanthropic deeds. Fifth through self-sacrifice. Sixth through severance from this world. Seventh through sanctity and holiness.”
Question—If man fail to acquire these forces and attain to these requirements what will be the outcome?
Answer—“Unless he acquire these forces and attain to these requirements, he will surely be deprived of the life that is eternal.”
Question—If these forces are acquired what is his attainment?
Answer—“If he possesses the knowledge of God, becomes ignited through the fire of the love of God; witnesses the great and mighty signs of the kingdom, becomes the cause of love among mankind and lives in the utmost state of sanctity and holiness, he shall surely attain to the second birth, be baptized by
the Holy Spirit and enjoy everlasting existence.
Question—For what has God created man?
Answer—“Man has been created for the knowledge of God and love of God; for the virtues of the human world, for spirituality, heavenly illumination and life eternal.”
Question—But how does man spend his time?
Answer—“He continues ignorant and negligent of all this. Consider how he seeks knowledge of every thing except the knowledge of God. For instance his utmost desire is to penetrate the mysteries of the lowest strata of the earth. Day by day he strives to know what can be found ten metres below the surface, what he can discover within the stone, what he can learn by archaeological research in the dust. He puts forth arduous labors to fathom terrestrial mysteries but is not at all concerned about knowing the mysteries of the kingdom, traversing the illimitable fields of the Eternal World, becoming informed of the Divine Realities, discovering the Secrets of God, attaining the Knowledge of God and witnessing the Splendors of the Sun of Truth and realizing the glories of everlasting life. He is unmindful and thoughtless of these. How much he is attracted to the mysteries of matter and how completely unaware he is of the Mysteries of Divinity!”
Question—What is the purpose of a Bahá’i?
Answer—“His purpose is the good pleasure of God, the understanding of the mysteries of the heart, and investigation of the Realities.”
Question—How must he spend his time?
Answer—“Day and night he must strive that he may attain to the significances of the heavenly kingdom; perceive the signs of divinity; acquire certainty of knowledge and realize that this world has a Creator, a Vivifier, a Provider, and Architect.”
Question—How must he know this?
Answer—“Through proofs and evidences and not through susceptibilities—nay rather through decisive arguments and real vision; that is to say, visualizing it as clearly as the outer eye beholds the sun. In this way may he behold the Presence of God and attain to the Knowledge of the Holy Divine Manifestations.”
Question—How must he come into a knowledge of the Divine Manifestations?
Answer—”He must come into the knowledge of the Divine Manifestations and Their Teachings through proofs and evidences. He must unseal the mysteries of the Supreme Kingdom and become capable of discovering the inner realities of things. Then shall he be the manifestation of the mercy of God and a true believer, firm and steadfast in the Cause of God.”
Question—By whom has the Door of Divine Knowledge been opened?
Answer—“Praise be to God! The Door of Divine Knowledge has been opened by Bahá’u’lláh; for He has lain the foundation whereby man may become acquainted with the verities of heaven and earth and has bestowed the utmost confirmation in this day.”
Question—What is He to us?
Answer—“He is our Teacher and Adviser; He is our Seer and the One Clement towards us.”
Question—What gifts and bounties has He prepared for those who are faithful?
Answer—“He has prepared His gifts and vouchsafed His bounties, revealed every admonition and behest, prepared for us the means of eternal glory; breathed upon us the life-quickening breaths of the Holy Spirit; opened before our faces the doors of the Paradise of Abha, and caused the lights of the Sun of Truth to shine upon us. The clouds of mercy have poured down their precious rain. The sea of favor is swelling and surging towards us.”
Question—What season has come?
Answer—”The Spiritual Springtime has come. Infinite Bounties and Graces have appeared. What Bestowal is greater than this?”
Question—What must be our expression in return?
Answer—“We must appreciate the Divine Generosity and act in accordance with the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, so that all good may be stored up for us and in both worlds we shall become precious and acceptable to God.
Question—What will be the ultimate attainment?
Answer—“We will attain to everlasting blessings, taste the delicacy of the love of God, find the sweetness of the knowledge of God, perceive the heavenly bestowals and witness the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Dr. Newell, the author of this article is an engineer, President of The Research Service, Incorporated, Consulting and Supervising Engineers, of Washington, D. C. He is the author of many scientific articles, and is deeply interested in all that pertains to the progress of humanity.
MANKIND in the making has marked his progress by the temples he has built. Most of these have long since disappeared; the records of these are blank. When fragments of others are found they give us perhaps our only evidence as to the existence of nations, wholly lost except for these fragments. Such ruins prove that these forgotten nations possessed intelligence and a high degree of skill during milleniums long before the historic era. They afford clues, fascinating but elusive, of systems of primitive thought and practice. The material temples have survived the deities to which they were erected.
Primarily a temple is not a church, not a place of public worship, quite the contrary. It is a consecrated piece of ground, not to be profaned by the careless crowd; it has been defined as the dwelling house of the Deity to which it is consecrated and whose presence is marked by a statue or other symbol. Here are kept the sacred treasures, the gifts and tribute of the worshippers.
A church building on the contrary is often regarded as a social center, a place of meeting for all who may be interested. It is not narrowly limited to the use of the priesthood but is more comparable to a school or place of instruction, an evolution in part comparable to the Jewish
synagogue, a place for religious instruction and worship.
The Mashriqu’l-Adhkár with its surrounding buildings may be said to combine the conceptions both of a temple, and of a church with class rooms and facilities for study and meditation. In one sense it has no direct ancestors; it stands in a class by itself. Yet it has its predecessors or prototypes, infinite in number and variety. Some of these doubtless have had an influence on the design; a few in a negative way, warnings what not to do; others have been helpful in suggesting size and form. It is well worth our time to study the “ancestors” or predecessors of the temple, so that we may appreciate the magnitude and far-reaching effect of the work in hand, namely, the building of the Bahá’i Temple, now in course of construction at Wilmette, Ill. It is, of course, impossible in a brief article to do much more than suggest a few lines of thought.
THE MOST complete or readily
available source of information on
the growth of the ideals of a temple
are in the Hebrew sacred books, at
least those combined and printed
together as the Old Testament.
There have been recorded the traditions
reaching back into pre-historic
times; giving the development of a
Semitic people from the days of
human sacrifice, when each tribal
--PHOTO--
LINCOLN MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
Most notable modern treatment of the exquisite temple architecture of the Greeks.
deity had a local habitation, on up to the times when there was erected for their god a permanent home or temple in Jerusalem, a rectangular room or structure into which the high priest alone could enter once a year. This was surrounded by courts and cloisters where the various classes of people might meet for public worship.
The essential feature of each temple, erected in succession at Jerusalem on the older ruin, was this “Holy of Holies” devoted to the Divine Presence. So far as is known, it was a plain box-like room of 20 cubits on each edge; that is, about 30 feet high, wide and long. The buildings which surrounded and concealed this, in whole or part, were doubtless ornamented in Oriental fashion; possibly a mixture of Cretan, Egyptian and Babylonian styles. Nothing characteristically Hebraic has been found.
There are no traces of the ornamentation nor of the colors used; many of which were doubtless vivid.
The Greeks had much of the same idea, a room or darkened enclosure devoted to the presence of a particular god whose statue was enshrined there. This was surrounded by columns all relatively severe, with little ornamentation; a striking contrast to the elaborate details of their far Eastern contemporaries. It must not be supposed, however, that these temples were colorless. Those that remained have been bleached white by the weather, but particles of color found in interstices show that they were not originally of the snowy white pentalic marble. Possibly the best idea of one of these temples devoted to the presence of a specific god can be had from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C., where the great statue practically
fills the building. The doorways of the Lincoln Memorial are unobstructed, whereas the doors of the Grecian and Roman temples were thrown open only on great occasions when the multitude was allowed to gaze upon the statue from a distance.
The Romans followed the Greeks in simplicity of outline, erecting rectangular buildings, carefully proportioned and conforming to certain architectural conventions which became more and more rigid as the arts declined.
In contrast to these Grecian and Roman structures, which the world has regarded as the highest achievement of art, were the Egyptian temples. In these the more striking feature was the entrance or approach with gigantic pylons guarding the door-ways, all massive, everything designed for permanence and with resultant heavy, serious and gloomy effects.
Opposed to the straight lines, low roofs and box-like forms of the classic age are the curves and elaborate tracery of the temples and tombs of Persia, India, and China,—with arches, slender posts, openings of all sizes and shapes, riots of forms and color, peaked roofs, spires, pagodas, minarets and domes, fantastic to western eyes, grotesque rather than serious. All in a sense were intended to serve the same purpose, namely, to guard and protect the sacred relics, images or symbols which denoted the presence of a deity or which turned the worshippers from worldly to spiritual thoughts.
One of the most impressive forms of architecture evolved by the human race, the Byzantine was a creation of the Greco-Roman world, particularly, its Eastern branch, The Eastern Roman empire located at Byzantium (now Constantinople) from whence the name Byzantine is
--PHOTO--
Taj Mahal, Agra, India, universally considered the finest specimen of the Islamic architecture, and by many as the most beautiful building in the world.
derived. The special character of this Byzantine architecture, of which St. Sofia is the most notable example, is the placing of a round dome upon a square base the four walls of which are each supported externally by half-domes. In the most perfect elaboration of this architectural system, as in the Turkish mosques of Constantinople, the central dome lifts its majestic head skyward above the friendly grouping half-domes clustering at its base and enclosed in the four slender tapering minarets; while the interior presents a special beauty of vast space unbroken by supporting columns, a majestic simplicity which commends itself especially to Muhammadans as expressive of the Unity of God.
DURING THE progress of the renaissance
of art in Europe came
the evolution of the Gothic forms
notable for the pointed arch and
for symmetrical pinnacles. There
was in medieval Europe a period
when men’s energies seemed to be
devoted to the multiplication of
these churches and cathedrals repeating
over and over again, with
slight variation, the more attractive
of these structures, embodying
a union of the Greek system of
columnar construction with the Roman
vaulting and arches. In fact,
to the European mind a church or
temple must be based upon some of
these types.
A reaction from these well established forms took place in New England where there developed the characteristic colonial church, barn-like in form and with a plain pointed steeple; possessing a certain charm from simplicity as contrasted
with the more ornate European structures.
There is a tendency to try to improve on these forms. In attempting to develop something suitable and yet characteristic, there has come about a wide range of effort shown by some of the more recent structures in the United States, particularly those adopted by the founders or followers of the newer religious or sects. As an illustration of such an attempt may be noted the temple in Salt Lake City, obviously inspired by European ideals and yet not following classical lines. This is a temple in the restricted sense in that its use is confined to the priesthood; while the people as a whole must congregate for worship in a tabernacle nearby.
BEARING IN mind these recent attempts
and the older well-known
types, it is of peculiar interest to
view the sketches of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár
whose concepts differ so
widely that it has been said by one
of the architects of the country to
be “the first new idea in architecture
since the 13th century.”
Whether so or not, it is unique. It
is erected on a circular foundation
which reaches down to bedrock,
the building itself being nine-sided.
It has no front nor back, as
all sides are identical. There is
hardly a straight line visible, everything
is curved. In place of solidity
an attempt is made to create an impression
of airiness. The architect,
Louis Bourgeois, “has conceived a
Temple of Light in which structure,
as usually understood, is to be concealed,
visible support eliminated
as far as possible, and the whole
fabric to take on the airy substance
--PHOTO--
St. Sofia, in Constantinople, a Byzantine church, now itself a Mosque, and the source from which the Muhammadans derived their religious architectural expression.
of a dream; it is a lacy envelope enshrining an idea, the idea of Light, a shelter of cobweb interposed between earth and sky, struck through and through with light—light which shall partly consume the forms and make of it a thing of faery.”*
It is to be noted that each type of religious architecture that humanity has created has been an expression of a definite religious belief. The Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek and Roman temples respectively, were of this kind. Christendom experimented with adaptations of the Roman bascilica, until the glorious Gothic architecture flowered out in the middle ages as a perfect expression of the inspiration
* Statement of Mr. H. Van Buren Magonigle, architect of New York City.
and upsoaring qualities of the Christian faith.
Meanwhile the Muhammadan world was evolving from the Byzantine church the mosque which, as already stated, is a perfect expression of the simplicity of dogma of the strictly unitarian faith of Islam.
--PHOTO--
Notre Dame in Paris, a modern type of Gothic architecture.
--PHOTO--
It was to be expected that the new power and inspiration of the Bahá’i faith should express itself in new forms of art and architecture. Such a form would naturally evolve from pre-existing forms just as, for instance, the Muhammadan mosque evolved from the Byzantine, and the Gothic from the bascilica; yet would be in a way a de novo creation. A study of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, designed by Louis Bourgeois, will make it evident that his glorious creation does exactly this. It embodies, as definitely
conceived by him, the characteristics of past religious architecture brought together in a new whole of which there is no similar example. In other words, this inspired architect has created a new form of architecture perfectly adapted to the expression of the Bahá’i Faith with its universality and its world-wide comprehensive scope. The future alone will show whether the Bahá’i world will seize upon this form of architecture as its particular type, or whether it will go on evolving other forms.
The following is Chapter 4—“The Collective Center”—in the series which the author has been contributing intermittently since November 1929, under the title “The Basis of Bahá’i Belief.”
JUST as the question most frequently asked by orthodox Christians when informed of the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, is “What do we need beyond Jesus?”—so amongst those for whom the Sun has ceased to give its Light, the first question is: “But what do we need with a Manifestation or Savior? They represent just another cause of quarrelsomeness and misunderstanding among men; their followers hate, condemn, yes, kill each other in the name of their Founders; why complicate human life any more than is necessary by setting up these divisions? Let us dispense with this Figure and go to God direct.”
There are some sixteen essential mineral elements necessary for our
bodily health. It would be just as sensible to say: “Why all this bother about agriculture, with its problems of cultivation, fertilization, floods, drought, harvesting; why the drudgery of preparation, cooking, preserving? Why not just eat these essential minerals and do away with the labor and effort of consuming them through another medium, the vegetable kingdom?”
Nothing of which the human mind can conceive can be acquired except through mediation. To ask mankind to find God without a Mediator would be like trying to obtain light and heat without a sun, like having music without notes, literature without words, words without letters, letters without sounds, sounds without atmosphere, atmosphere
without its constituent elements, and these without that underlying all-pervasive, indivisible energy upon which empirical contact is based.
It is just as defensible to ask that we acquire knowledge without focusing the attention, as that we attain to the ultimate by any other means than through that Eternal Sun that reflects His Light and Life to men. An apple might as well say: “I do not want to be severed from my source by any intervention. I won’t grow on the branch; I’ll grow on the root of the tree.”
Ábdu’l-Bahá speaks of the focal center which lies in the very structure of the universe.* The two fundamental laws of creation are organization and change. Beginning with Heraclitus and Empedocles extending to Bergson and Dewey this question has vexed and lured the minds of men: What is it that remains fixed in the flux; why does the universe continue changeless in the midst of incessant change? That which does not change is the organization of all phenomena and of all experience around a center. The atom with its proton; the systems with their central suns; the protoplasmic cell with its nucleus; the vertical movement of gravity toward its center; centripotal and centrifugal forces; legislative and executive functions in government (else anarchy and chaos); the cerebro-spinal nervous system as the center of perception with its attendant motion; apperception the organizing power of the personality; the point, irreducible minimum of the universe (modern
* Baha’i Scriptures ¶—983.
physics shows the point as containing the whole non-spatial universe—the nexus between the finite and the infinite; this same condition expressed in religious terminology is the only Begotten Son of the Father, the Word made flesh); the heart which focuses the vital forces; attention, the pivotal point around which reason and learning are organized; the great personalities Who alone have influenced social and historical movements; Truth as the reference point which determines whether propositions agree among themselves and with the further interpretation of experience; and so forth indefinitely, as far as the mind can reach.
For everything there is a center, and this center is the mediating point through which otherwise severed and disunited strata, powers and kingdoms mingle: the vast primordial flow of energy would remain undifferentiated and therefore useless to human beings did it not reach combustion in the sun, there to be reflected out again in the form of light and heat, the essentials of life on this planet; without the taut string, the hollow reed,–the mighty winds of heaven would withhold forever from man the sublime purgation of music; and when the tides of the heart finally ebb, the rapture and glory of creative life has lost its contact with this world.
If then in the physical universe, the universe of chemistry and biology with its magical perfection of organization and structure is built around a center, a focal point, how can we rationally suggest that a kingdom as unorganized, as inchoate, as imperfect as the kingdom of man’s mind and heart can dispense
with this requirement that holds the systems, the exact processes of mathematics and of his own thinking in their proper orbits.
But here he is likely to say: “Very well, I will grant that my relation to God must be organized around a center; but why must that center be a human being? Why can’t it be something psychological like attention or apperception, already used in your illustrations?”
Out of his own mouth we judge him; the quarrelsomeness, the hatred to which he has already objected arise from the substitution of human psychology, the following of our own differing and antagonistic interpretations of God and His Will, for the supreme guidance laid down for us by that Great Mediator Who alone can transform through the Center of His Life and Teachings the majestic attributes of God to accord with the finite requirements of man.
When we attempt to push aside the Manifestation and “go direct to God,” each one of us is motivated by an entirely different conception of what God is, how to express His Will, of what is well-pleasing to Him. A fine and courageous woman who recently offered her objection to the Bahá’i Teachings—that we had had enough Manifestations and didn’t need any more—responded when I asked her where man would turn for accurate guidance if the Great Mouthpiece of God did not reveal His Word from age to age: “Why, you are God, I am God, every one is God.” I gently suggested that things equal to the same thing might reasonably be expected to be equal to each other; but that the God in her and the
God in me have a totally different impression of what God really is. If each of us is God with such variant ideas of what His own nature is the Almighty is not only not Omniscient but as mystified, struggling and partially informed as the average human being.
This conception, called in philosophy Dogmatic Idealism, was especially fostered by Bishop Berkeley. Its reductio ad absurdam is known as Solipsism; if I am coexistent and identical with the consciousness of God what proof have I that all the other people in the world are not merely my ideas or that I am the idea of some one of them? This particular system now stands in the museum of mental antiquities along with Absolutism, Nominalism, Scholasticism, Aristotelian Logic and Platonic Politics.
The crux of the matter lies in our interpretation of the nature of the soul and of life’s ultimate purposes. The embarrassing news of ourselves given us by modern psychological discoveries unfolds the age-old effort of the subconscious mind to aggrandize the ego and to bend the environment to its progress and supremacy. The age-old struggle envisaged in the great religions of the world is carried on between those elements in the personality that would escape the limitations of the self with its humiliations, doubts, fears, defeats–and those that seek the assurance of sacrifice, good will and peace.
Now each kingdom is dependent upon something above it, if it is to be elevated into a higher state. It is only as the vegetable sinks its roots into the mineral kingdom that the mineral is enabled to change its
nature and rise into a condition of augmentation and growth; only as the vegetable is sacrificed to the animals that it can enter into a kingdom of free motion and sense perception; so human beings are powerless to elevate themselves to the spiritual station for which they were created except as something from that level reaches down and they through the sacrifice of their inherent nature of egotism and selfishness, are exalted to the Realm of God’s Kingdom.
All the basic things of experience begin with the infinitely great, are reduced to the infinitely small and then once more are radiated out again into infinitude: the basic energies focus in the sun and then sustain a great system as they are reflected to the planets. The fundamental unified energy of the cosmos focuses into ninety-two chemical
elements, invisible, indiscernible, and then builds the complicated structure of the universe: the power of mind can be reduced to some fifty-six sounds, infinitely small in comparison to the stupendous kingdom of reason, science, philosophy, guidance, communication, art, which those sounds build.
A focal center, a transmitting point between two infinitudes is the evident structure of the worlds we are living in: it is therefore irrational and indefensible to suggest that this great cosmic pattern breaks down at the one point where it is most sorely needed, a point of transmission between God and man.
For these reasons (and for others, which lack of space prohibits discussing) man cannot dispense with a Mediator or Manifestation of God.
THERE has come to my hands a little book in a rainbow binding—its flyleaves are the azure blue of sky. It is called “The Garden of the Heart,” compiled from the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l Bahá by Mrs. Frances Esty.*
As I turned the pages of the slender, bright-hued volume, charmingly rendered through the Roycrofter’s
* The Garden of the Heart, Frances Esty, Baha'i Publishing Committee, New York.
art, I read at the heads of the pages the enchanting words which are a key to the passages of which the book consists: sun, garden, seeds, flowers, plant, fountain, trees, birds, fragrance, spring. Soon I was lost in that retreat of the spirit where “the ideal consummate wisdom is hidden in every plant and a thousand nightingales of speech are in ecstacy upon every branch.”
Those who have already found
their way to the garden of the heart have learned the Source of those utterances in which the wordless messages of God through Nature are revealed. The Persians called Bahá’u’lláh the Ancient Beauty, the Beloved of the World. Words of love, of dominion, of wisdom from His Supreme Pen have astonished the learned and worked miracles upon the hearts of the heedless in two hemispheres during the last century. Of Him only an occasional picture is revealed—of a child of the imperious ruling class of Persia surrounded by marveling, venerable mullahs; of a youth made head of a lordly household famed for its magnificence and regal hospitality; of a young man in chains in a Bábi dungeon, or seen for a moment as His child saw Him, shackled by the neck to a fellow prisoner, hatless under a tropical sun; as a law-giver in a prison room at ’Akká, gray walls, stone floor, pacing through the night, a trembling amanuensis transcribing words of revelation upon a blazing, incendiary scroll. Then of a sage in a crumbling palace in the shadow of prison walls—sunset hours of a Day of existence in which the “rushing wind” of God had blown continuously; a King moving among His most obedient servants-the birds, and flowers and trees; a Creator gazing into the innocent, upturned faces of His creation.
In the garden He found promise of a world based on divine law—our
world that is to be. Here flowers of different colors agreed; beauty, submission, simplicity, usefulness were the unconscious expression of the inhabitants of this kingdom. Through the delicate perfection of the world of nature God alone was speaking. There was no lesser sound.
To what other world than to that of Nature should ’Abdu’l-Bahá, the Servant of Bahá, turn for analogy in His promulgation of His Father’s teachings? The chiming of fragile flower bells, the joyous whirr of wings, the brimming of perpetual fountains, the glory of eternal sunshine—through these did God reveal His secret that man might understand.
The idea for this compilation, wherein one finds the essence of mysticism and poetry, grew in Mrs. Esty’s lovely earthly garden; it is its most beautiful flowering. “From flowers inhale the fragrance of the Beloved One,” Bahá’u’lláh had said, and there were the words of an oft-repeated prayer, “Cause me to walk in the Garden of the Nearness of Thy Presence, O my Beloved!” The whisperings of the Beloved in her dream of a man-built garden were inscribed in a God-made Book, where the Presence so subtly revealed, became articulate in deathless words. In the “Garden of the Heart” Mrs. Esty, lover of gardens, shares with us the results of loving search.
Dr. Bagdadi, whom we asked to write upon the science and art of medicine from the modern viewpoint, has the unusual advantage of thorough acquaintance with the medical concepts of the Orient as well as the Occident. Furthermore he has had not only the great opportunity of the guidance which comes through the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and of ’Abdu’l-Bahá as regards medical practice, but also direct contact with ’Abdu’l-Bahá Whose message to a group of medical students at Beirut University he cites in his articles. The first article brings a brief of medical history up to modern times. The second article describes the art of healing as Bahá’is conceive it.
THE Egyptians and Babylonians are considered the world’s earliest builders of the foundation of medical science.
The Egyptians were the first ones to use many drugs such as opium. and squill with other vegetable extracts, as onions, caraway and pomegranate seeds, and sycamore fruit. In surgery the Egyptians were particularly skilled in performing amputations, cutting for bladder stones, venesection, cupping; and their surgeons bandaged well.
The Babylonians more than 2,000 years B. C., endeavored to find ways and means to combat diseases. At that time, the city of Babylon was the world’s greatest city, even larger than the cities of London and New York combined. The Babylonians had famous Temples and “hanging gardens.” When one became ill, the members of the family would put the afflicted one in the temple or in the garden, where sympathetic people could stop at his bedside, make a diagnosis and prescribe in writing whatever might help the sufferer. Then in the evening the anxious parents or relatives would come for the patient and the various prescriptions, and hurry back to their homes to
try out the different suggested. remedies. Thus human knowledge and varied experience collected together just as little rain drops form a stream or lake. The Babylonians employed cupping and the aid of the whip to obtain hyperemia. But now we are fortunate to apply a hot water bag or bottle instead of using the whip on the poor patient.
The Persians took all the medical experiences of the Babylonians, added to them from their own knowledge and recorded them in the form of books. Avicenna, a Persian by birth, wrote his first book on medicine at the age of twenty-one. He wrote on anatomy, surgery psychiatry and materia medica, and his books have been printed in Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. Then the Arabs contributed their share; and later were instrumental in spreading this knowledge in Europe where it was translated into several languages. The Indians used actual cautery instead of the knife; and resorted to other primitive practices in both medicine and surgery.
WITH THE DEVELOPMENT of medicine, it is natural that superstitions should have developed among the ancient people. In
early Greek times, amulets and charms, especially crab eyes, were used against eye troubles. A coral branch in silver settings and a coral chain placed around the neck of a child were regarded as protective against evil eyes, jealousy and bad influences. In the Orient even up to this time beads and sometimes pieces of alum are strung together and used as amulets to protect children, camels, horses, mules, donkeys and cattle. While traveling in Egypt, Palestine and Syria a few years ago, I was very much surprised to see so many automobiles and trucks decorated with amulets and charms for protection against accidents, engine troubles or flat tire.
Hippocrates, (460-357 B. C.) “the father of modern medicine,” gave to Greek medicine and through it to modern medicine, its scientific spirit and its ethical ideals. He was instrumental in divorcing medicine and surgery from superstitions. Plato (427-347 B. C.) likewise was a famous philosopher and noted for his knowledge of the healing art. Pythagoras, (580- 489 B. C.) sage and philosopher, traveled through Egypt and the East in search of knowledge. He introduced a regular system of dietetics, avoiding meat. Aristotle (384-322 B. C.) never dissected a human body but examined the structure of a great number of animals and thus contributed to biological knowledge. His physiology and anatomy show that he was a great philosopher and doctor. Claudius Galen (131-201 A. D.) “The Prince of Physicians,” was the last great Greek physician after Hippocrates.
Aurilius Cornelius Celsus in the first century after Christ, though not a physician, rendered the best account of Roman medicine of his time. The Romans were the first people to create military first-aid stations. In a country almost constantly at war with its neighbors, the development of military surgery was no more than natural. The Romans invented teeth-extracting forceps, small pocket case instruments, speculum, probe, etc.
IN THE MIDDLE AGES the Arabs
excelled all other nations in medicine,
and, they were the earliest
experimenters in chemistry. In the
13th century branding and acupuncture—(bleeding
by penetrating the
tissues with needles)—were the
chosen methods of treating joint
diseases as well as muscular pains.
Cupping in a wet and dry form
was and still is employed in the
Orient. The cups used for this
purpose are especially designed
where the air therein can be exhausted
by suction. I, too had to
use cupping, scarification, and other
primitive methods, in order to
please my patients in Palestine and
Syria.
Trephining—drilling in the skull—was practiced with primitive drills. Schematic illustrations representing the bony, nervous, muscular, arterial and venous systems were some of the works in the evolution of the 13th century.
In the 14th century the art of medicine was improved. Nursing was studied by talented women; and a primitive laboratory for tests and analyses was in use. On the other hand, witchcraft in the middle
ages was at its highest. Humanity at that time could hardly accept the spread of epidemic diseases and misfortunes without assigning a cause, and so the devil was to be blamed. Thus the conception of witchcraft was born.*
In the 15th century, anatomy, dissection and pharmacy were taught to students. Teachers such as Jacobus Sylvius read from books, the servants did the dissection and the students looked on.
In the 16 century, a hospital was opened in Paris. The physician used to administer medicine to the patient from a special beaker, and the nurse carried a jug of water to wash away the taste of the medicine.
As to surgery in those days,—in preparation for an operation—the patient was placed in a wooden bathtub, often partaking of a good meal, while the surgeon prepared his instruments. A narrow table served as an operating table. The patient’s hands were tied above his head, and the extremities were held down by assistants. While the surgeon operated, a servant served refreshments to the onlookers. In amputation, the surgeon would amputate the limb, leaving the assistant to sew up the wound, while he occupied himself with consoling the patient.
* Even today, there are many witch doctors in the world. When a witch doctor in South Africa is called upon to make a diagnosis, he does not care for X-ray negatives, laboratory reports, history cards, nor does he even bother to take the patient‘s temperature. Instead, he picks up a bag filled with vertebrae of various sizes and, mumbling a few words of sorcery, carelessly spills them in all directions. He then propounds the diagnosis and prognosis, and collects his fee. Primitive simple-minded people who believe in everything, consider the witch doctor as a person with extraordinary power of healing; who can assist ardent wooers in their love problems; who can find lost or stolen property; who can bring rain from heavens; who can bring or drive away good luck, etc.
Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) from a barber’s apprentice developed into the greatest surgeon of his time in Paris. He discarded the use of boiling oil to stop bleeding after amputation, and introduced the use of ligature and surgical dressings. Guillaume Bondelet (1509-1566) founded the anatomical theatre, and was such an enthusiastic anatomist that he dissected the body of his own son. Obstetrics in those days was a comparatively primitive and simple matter. Heronymus Cardanus (1501-1576) of Milan, was famous in the explanation of symptoms and the administration of laxatives.
Michael Servetus (1509-1553) pointed out that the blood passed into the heart after being mixed with air in the lungs. He was a physician and clergyman. He was persecuted and burned alive in Geneva.
AMONG the greatest medical and
anatomical discoveries of the 17th
century were the successful carrying
out of experiments in blood
transfusion by Richard Lower; the
discovery of the circulation of the
blood by William Harvey; the use
of the microscope in studying the
blood corpuscles and human tissue
as practiced by Marcello Malpighi.
The 18th century ushered in by a dreadful plague in Europe, saw the eventual discovery of vaccination as insurance against the dreadful plague of smallpox–a discovery of Edward Jenner in 1798. During this century also occurred the first attempts to treat the insane in a humane manner. Philippe Pinel urged the necessity of treatment by gentle means and recommended
physical labor in place of corporal punishment and physical restrictions.
The 19th century witnessed a tremendous advance in medical knowledge and treatment. The most important discovery of the century—that of Louis Pasteur regarding the bacterial causes of contagion—distinctly stands as one of the most beneficent discoveries of man since the beginning of the world. During this century also the homeopathic medicine and treatment was inaugurated by Samuel Hahnemann. From the discoveries of Lord Lister has been derived the present system of aseptic surgery. In this century also anesthesia were discovered and used for surgical operations, Dr. Long of Athens, Ga., giving the first public demonstration with ether at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846. Robert Koch made the important discovery of the tubercle bacillus and the vibrios of cholera.
DURING THE present century a
great development has taken place
in treatments other than those based
upon materia medica and surgery.
Doctors themselves place little
value in drugs. Maintaining normal
conditions of living with the power of nature to do the healing—this is what all physicians recognize as the reality of healing today.
The vast success of Christian Science and other schools of mental and spiritual healing have acted as a leaven to impregnate the art of medicine with mental as well as physical qualities. The power of the mind in the mechanism of the body is being more fully recognized, not only by the laity, but also by the medical profession. Anything which can effect the mind becomes also a factor in healing, namely, prayer, faith, etc. This is recognized even by materialists who realize the vast importance of the subjective as well as the objective world of the patient.
At this point in the evolution of society and of medicine, the world is indeed ready for the practical and all comprehensive treatment of the art of healing as given by Bahá’u’lláh and ’Abdu’l-Bahá. The Bahá’i Movement has the distinction of being the first religion definitely to inculcate a science of healing. What this Bahá’i teaching is will be described fully in the ensuing article.
“Religion and science are intertwined with each other and cannot be separated. These are the two wings with which humanity must fly. One wing is not enough. Every religion which does not concern itself with Science is mere tradition, and that is not the essential. Therefore, science, education and civilization are most important necessities for the full religious life.”
