Transcript:Farzam Arbab/Growth of the individual and teaching the faith
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[0:00] Thank you, Alláh-u-Abhá friends. If we examine the messages from the Universal House of Justice addressed to the countries of this continent announcing the goals of the second phase of the Seven Year Plan, we see that almost all of them include the goal of achieving a great and unprecedented increase in the number of avowed believers throughout the country and from all strata of society.
[0:45] The message to this conference clearly states that in the respective home fronts, the Bahá’í of North America should intensify the drive to attract the masses to God's holy cause, to provide the means for integration into the work of the faith, and should become standard bearers of an embryonic Bahá’í society, which is destined to gradually emerge under the influence of the integrating and civilizing forces emanating from the source of God's revelation. It is to be expected, then, that Bahá’ís everywhere are giving a great deal of thought to this most important goal, and that much of Baha'i conversation throughout the world is about the nature, the principle and the methods of teaching, and a constant search for activities that would lead to the acceptance by very large numbers of people of the truth of the Bahá’í revelation. Given the dimension of this ongoing consultation and search, I can only hope to contribute during these few minutes with a few ideas that some of those present may wish to incorporate in their reflections on the subject as they strive to formulate specific plans of action that each one of us has to adopt in the field of teaching.
[2:46] It may be useful in general to organize our thoughts about teaching from two different points of view. From the point of view of the individual teacher, and from the point of view of the Bahá’í community. From the standpoint of the individual of course, we all know that teaching is a paramount duty of every Bahá’í. "Say: Teach ye the Cause of God, O people of Bahá" are the words of Bahá’u’lláh, for God has prescribed unto everyone the duty of proclaiming his message and regarded it as the most meritorious of all deeds. However it seems to me that as we meditate on the nature and the importance of teaching we reach a point when we look up on this most meritorious deed as more than a mere duty, and we become truly enamored with teaching.
[4:01] Certain deeds enjoined by Bahá’u’lláh as duties are in fact natural and spontaneous expressions of Bahá’í life. In the same way that a rose is the expected outcome of the rose bush and the beauty finally expressed by the flower gives meaning to all the life that goes on in the plant, and in the same way that the melody is the natural expression of a musical instrument, many deeds such as prayer and such as teaching are the expected outcome of the growth and maturity of every individual Bahá’í.
[4:56] It is in this sense that I would like to suggest that we consider teaching as a natural and expected expression of faith. Absolute faith in the validity of all and every aspect of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh in the efficacy of the medicine that the Divine Physician has brought for the ailments of humanity and the the promises that have been made so explicitly by the central figures of this faith and in the power of the covenant that guides and strengthens every believer who rises to teach the cause and changes the hearts off the listeners. But if teaching is the fruit and expression of faith, it should not be surprising that success in teaching is also proportional to the degree of faith. The power of the Word of God changes the hearts of men. But the faith of the teacher, reflected in every detail of the way he or she teaches, is a vehicle that helps this word reach the hearts of the listeners. "Faith is the magnet which draws the confirmation of the Merciful One", says ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Service is the magnet which attracts the heavenly strength.
[6:40] It is imperative then, that every teacher, but especially those who wish to participate in plans with the goal of achieving unprecedented increase in the number of avowed believers, reflect often on the subject of things, and learn to measure the efficacy of each step in the balance of faith, for the processes of mass teaching and consolidation have to be examined through a different lens than the usual event of life lived in limited circles.The farmer of many acres of land must have a broader understanding of the principles of growth than the one tends to care for a single tree at a time. In the same sense, teaching is the natural an inherent expression of love. The love of God leads directly to love for all of humanity, and if this love is not to remain an abstract intellectual thought, it must result in the ardent desire to serve his children and above all, lead them to a recognition of the manifestations. "Let all eyes rejoice" are the words of Bahá’u’lláh, "and let every ear be gladdened, for now is the time to gaze on His beauty, now is the fit time to hearken to His voice. Proclaim unto every longing lover: “Behold, your Well-Beloved hath come among men!” and to the messengers of the Monarch of love impart the tidings: “Lo, the Adored One hath appeared arrayed in the fullness of His glory!” O lovers of His beauty! Turn the anguish of your separation from Him into the joy of an everlasting reunion, and let the sweetness of His presence dissolve the bitterness of your remoteness from His court."
[9:25] But then again, if teaching is a natural expression of love, it should not be surprising that success in teaching is proportional to the depth of the love of the teacher. It is essential that every Bahá’í teacher, especially those involved in expansion on consolidation among the masses, should constantly reflect on the nature and the intensity of this love, its purity, its selflessness and its freedom from all restrictions, for it is not so difficult to love a few who are like oneself, one's intimate friends, whom one gradually leads to the understanding of the Bahá’í revelation. But to patiently teach and nurture a large number off people of different backgrounds, of different habits, of different cultures, on a different intellectual preparation necessarily implies a special measure of love.
[10:56] In the same sense, teaching is a natural expression off knowledge, for knowledge grows, as it is shared with others. Personal study and reflection increases knowledge, but certain avenues of understanding open up only in the application of knowledge, in teaching, especially when teaching is concerned with setting in motion immense social processes as it is in the case of expansion and consolidation among the masses. "O wayfarer in the path of God!", are again the words of Bahá’u’lláh, "Take thou thy portion of the ocean of His grace, and deprive not thyself of the things that lie hidden in its depths. Be thou of them that have partaken of its treasures. A dewdrop out of this ocean would, if shed upon all that are in the heavens and on the earth, suffice to enrich them with the bounty of God, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."
[12:32] Once again, if teaching is the natural and expected expression of knowledge, it should not be surprising that success in teaching is proportional to the knowledge and understanding of the teacher. However, for those who wish to be effective in mass teaching, this understanding has to go beyond personal knowledge of the truth of the Bahá’í teaching and principles, and should include on ever increasing understanding of human nature, and the mysteries of spiritual growth examined in the light off the Bahá’í revelation for those who are to plan and administer programs of expansion and consolidation, this knowledge must also include insights into the nature of the spiritual and material forces that move the masses and that lead to dynamics of growth, totally different from growth achieved in small circles of friends.
[14:03] Surely within the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi and the guidance from the Universal House of Justice must exist the basic knowledge that if applied diligently and continuously by believers everywhere, may leader us to the methods and the programs for teaching and consolidating large numbers of believers. Hundreds of thousands of human beings, not only in Africa, India or South America, but also in the United States and Canada have shown that they are willing to accept Bahá’u’lláh, the moment the message is presented to them in a way as to touch their hearts. Surely an objective observer would expect Bahá’ís everywhere to be constantly trying to apply the gems of wisdom enshrined in their teachings to achieve new vision, to find new methods, and to design new programs in order to deepen large numbers of believers and to make possible for these great willing masses to enter the faith.
[15:42] Such an observer would be totally surprised to find so many believers who simply shun the issue of mass teaching or even oppose it with a simple pretext that we do not know how to deepen and consolidate them. Let us re-examine our concepts of what it is to be knowledgeable in the faith, and achieve the kind of understanding and knowledge that will help us bring in the large masses of humanity into the Faith. Now clearly teaching as we have considered it as a natural expression of faith, of love, of knowledge, of devotion, of obedience and of spiritual joy cannot be interpreted simply as silent teaching, teaching by example. It is true that the example of our Bahá’í lives should be the greatest guide for all of humanity, but surely we cannot imagine raising the cry of "Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá!" in silence.
[17:25] Teaching involves the use of the creative word, it involves utterance, it involves the exposition of eternal truth by a loving on kindly tongue. Now although success in teaching the masses depends so heavily on the qualities of the teacher, it would not be sufficient to examine it merely in the light of the activities of the individual teacher. Teaching the masses, far more than teaching an individual friend, is the natural expression and the natural outcome of unity within a community, unity of thought, unity of purpose and unity of action. It involves the graduate development of plans, and constant evaluation and revision by the institutions of a national community. It implies an accompanying process of constant consultation about the methods, the concepts and the principals among the teachers and the institutions at the local, regional, and national level.
[19:08] Rather than speaking about the nature of such plans in abstract it may be useful to briefly examine a national teaching plan recently adopted by the nationals spiritual assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada. In formulating these plan, this national assembly examined carefully a number of experiences, both positive and negative from the past and consulted upon concepts that are being employed by groups of the Bahá’ís in different parts off the continent. From this analysis emerged the beginning of a long term plan, which will undoubtedly entail many stages and will constantly be adjusted, taking advantage of each victory to expand the possibilities of new and more successful activities.
[20:18] The first concept underlying this plan is that especially in mass teaching, groups of devoted teachers should focus their attention, their thoughts, their prayers and their efforts and energies on a specific population, the inhabitants of a small area, the members of a tribe, a certain age group in a school, in a university or in any part of a city or a town.
[21:01] The second concept is that teaching and consolidation of this population can be looked upon as a process in which all its members are urged and given all the possible help to walk the spiritual path, a path that takes us closer and closer to the Bahá’u’lláh.
[21:30] The third concept is that there is no reason to expect that every member of this population will move along this path at the same pace. The natural process leads to a few who moved forward quickly and soon becomes shining stars in the heaven off the service to the cause. Others lag behind, and many take the first step quickly, but then move at a very slow pace. And yet others stand for a long time, hesitating to even take the first step. The group of teachers who have focused their attention on this population, rather than insisting on deepening everyone at the same level at the same time, and thus becoming becoming overwhelmed with anxiety are to be concerned with the dynamics of this spiritual movement off the whole population, and try to assure the existence of different programs of proclamation, teaching and deepening that would help each one of them walk this path at their own pace.
[23:00] The fourth concept is that within the present structure of local spiritual assemblies and regional and national committee's, schemes must be devised to organize the believers for teaching and to mobilize the teachers. One such scheme, and only one, is to ask the group of teachers who have decided to focus their energies on a specific population to form a more or less permanent expansion consolidation team, permanent in the sense that they are concerned with long term processes and not a single teaching project of a short duration. These expansion consolidation teams are not of course, administrative structures, they do not have coordinators or secretaries, for example, but are groups of friends who are to help each other and to consult with each other and to learn with each other as to how to bring a whole population into the faith.
[24:18] The fifth concept is that the members of the team should not consider themselves as outsiders to the population they have chosen to teach. They should understand that their own spiritual growth is intimately connected with the spiritual growth of the population and to the service they render them. Thus the first set of goals that the team adopts are related to the spiritual growth of its own members. The team with the help of the institutions of the Faith establishes a deepening program for itself, however it is careful that this deepening will lead to action and will not be the kind of study that finally becomes an end in itself. In fact, the themes of the deepening are closely related to the efforts that the team is making to teach, to expand and to consolidate. The team is to try to understand as deeply as possible the population it has chosen to join and to discover those actions and programs that will lead to the spiritual advancement of that population. It is to study the creative word constantly and find ways that would make it possible for every member of the population to receive the creative word according to his or her capacities, be it a sentence at a time, or intensive courses of study for some others.
[26:25] The sixth concept is that the weight of the responsibility for winning the goals given to us by the Universal House of Justice should be on the shoulders of the individual believer. The kind of situation in which the believers are accustomed to waiting to be pushed by the institutions to carry out the specific tasks is not conducive to accelerated progress of growth. However, much more energy and enthusiasm is generated when individuals are not simply told to choose and carry out their own plans, but when groups of believers are invited and told to consult with each other, to analyze their plans and to choose that portion of the goals of the plan that they could win within the population they have chosen to serve. Examples of goals adopted by a team for a specific period of time would be to bring in so many new believers, to form so many new local assembly, to establish so many classes for the children, to establish a certain number of deepening classes, to proclaim the faith to certain segment of the population they have chosen, and many other goals according to the diversity of the needs and opportunities of the moment.
[28:13] The seventh concept is that the administrative institutions would have to grow rapidly in response to the opportunities that the actions of a large number of individuals and teams, among very diverse populations would open to the faith. Thus the concept of planning the details of the actions of others would have to be abandoned and assemblies and communities would have to respond to the initiative that is coming from groups of individual believers. They would have to dedicate themselves to the true service of the friends, facilitating achievement of goals each team has set for itself, consulting with them on the nature of those goals, helping them with material resource whenever is necessary, bringing to them the experiences of others teams and individuals and assuring that the very different activities of different teams sum up to win the totality of the goals of the plan for the country.
[29:43] The eighth concept is that the number of teachers participating in the expansion consolidation team should grow proportionally as the number of Bahá’ís within the selected population increases. Thus the dynamics of teaching should be such that at the same time that large numbers of people are brought into the faith, especially in receptive populations, special attention is given to the ones who show more interest, who are guided to perform acts of service, which may begin with a simple sharing of a prayer or a passage with other new believers, but should soon lead to full participation in the activities of the expansion consolidation team. It may even be envisioned that are living cells grow and divide, these teams, after reaching a certain size, would divide in two, each concentrating on some segment of the same population or taking on a new population.
[31:10] On the basis of these concepts, which are really simple, the national Bahá’í community of Canada has already begun an ambitious national teaching program, which only in his first six to seven months has led to the formation of more than two hundred teams, and a noticeable, although not very large, increase in the number of believers per month as compared to the previous years. However what has been occurring in certain parts of Canada, for other countries, and I only use that as an example to clarify the concepts of the kind of planning that we have to do, is only a prelude to the unimaginable possibilities of growth that are open to every country, only if the Bahá’ís would accept the challenges that mass teaching offers and would not tend to run away from them. Unfortunately or fortunately, for mass teaching to occur in a given country and for the goal of entry by troops to be achieved, it doesn't seem to be sufficient that small numbers off teachers dedicate themselves to the teaching activities, even though everyone does not have to participate physically in the activities, the moral support, the enthusiasm, the happiness of the entire community if not on the national level at least on the level of a region is absolutely necessary. We stand at a time of the history where most receptive people to the faith seems to be the most oppressed populations of the Earth. We cannot justify telling these people, as unfortunately we seem to be doing in many parts, that we will not give them the faith, until other less receptive souls are ready to accept the faith. The goal of teaching all the strata of society is a positive statement, it means teaching all strata of society. It means accelerating teaching within all groups, it does not mean to stop or to make slower the coming into the faith off those who come by the thousands in order for others to come it means also to accelerate the other ones that are coming in one and ten, but it is also to accelerate the teaching among the receptive souls, it means teaching all strata of society.
[34:59] Now it is a well proven fact that as receptive as thousands of souls belonging to the vast majority of human beings are to the faith, centuries of suffering has made them too sensitive to not being accepted by others. They will not grow within the faith if Bahá’í communities do not welcome them with open arms, with joy, and without prejudice. They will not grow within the Bahá’í community if they're not treated as equals, and if they're looked upon as hundreds of uneducated souls that have to be consolidated, at great expense and sacrifice of others. A few years have passed since the great impetus that have been achieved in mass teaching in many countries was lost. It would be difficult to uphold now as we look back that by neglecting mass teaching these national communities have gained a great deal, and that now other avenues of growth have been established. Surely by continuing to teach the receptive souls, by systematizing, by consulting by learning together, those who did not stop are learning how to establish the twin processes of expansion and consolidation that should go always hand in hand.
[37:06] Now, a few years later, we are even further into the dark heart of the age of transition. The processes of disintegration of the human society have accelerated. The gloom of despair has spread wider and deeper all throughout the world, affecting most of all, those same receptive souls who would accept their redeemer, Bahá’u’lláh. Only if the Bahá’ís would joyfully give them the message. What will history tell about us? What will the future historians write about the last two decades of this, the century of light? May I suggest that it is all within our grasp to assure that these decades will be remembered in most glorious terms, and that our generation will be remembered as the one that ushered humanity into that long awaited stage of entry by troops and mass conversion. All we have to do is to accept that the growth of the faith need not be controlled and tightly administered, according to the limited capability and visions of ourselves mere human beings, but a gigantic movement, motivated and impelled by the powerful spiritual forces that have been liberated by Bahá’u’lláh, is set in motion. Let us always remember these words of the Guardian, as he described the nature of these unimaginable and powerful forces. "A tempest" he said, "A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catastrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth . . . sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, uprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants."
[41:40] Within such a tempest, how can we, who have been enlisted in the army of light, the army that is to conquer the hearts of all the inhabitants of this planet, how can we move so little? Why should we act with so much cautiousness, so many doubts and so much hesitation? Let us arise with same faith that is moving our brothers and sisters in Iran to give their lives for Bahá’u’lláh. With that love that is the reflection of Bahá’u’lláh for all of humanity, no matter how humble and lowly, and achieve in every corner of the world, the goal of the unprecedented increase in the number of avowed believers from all strata of society, thank you.
