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WORLD ORDER
THE BAHÁ’Í MAGAZINE
MAY, 1948
Beauty and Art in the Bahá’í World
Stanwood Cobb
Freedom from Fear
Gertrude Schurgast
The Work of Bahá’ís in the Promotion
of Human Rights
Bahá’í International Community
“The Great Rehearsal,” Editorial
Eleanor Sweney Hutchens
Mystic Ode of Háfiz, Poem
Translated by Sir William Jones
The Motive Power
Gladys Kline
Glimpsing Oneness, Poem
Maye Harvey Gift
Peace of Mind, Book Review
Mabel Hyde Paine
Vision, Poem
Alice Josephine Wyatt
With Our Readers
20¢
WORLD ORDER is published monthly in Wilmette, Ill., by the Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. Garreta Busey, Editor; Eleanor S. Hutchens, Mabel H. Paine, Flora Hottes, Associate Editors.
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under the Act of March 3, 1879. Content copyrighted 1948 by
Bahá’í Publishing Committee. Title registered at U. S. Patent
Office.
ONE MONTH IN ADVANCE
THE Cathedral of St. Alexander at Sophia, Bulgaria,
a notable example of architecture as the
expression of religious aspiration. See Stanwood
Cobb’s article on “Beauty and Art in the Bahá’í
World,” p. 39.
Photo by Acme
BAHÁ’U’LLÁH declares that just as lesser living things have times of sudden emergence into new and fuller life, so for mankind also a “critical stage,” a time of re-birth, is at hand. Then modes of life which have persisted from the dawn of history up till now will be quickly, irrevocably, altered, and humanity enter on a new phase of life as different from the old as the butterfly is different from the caterpillar, or the bird from the egg. Mankind as a whole, in the light of new Revelation, will attain to a new vision of truth; as a whole country is illumined when the sun rises, so that all men see clearly, where but an hour before everything was dark and dim. “This is a new cycle of human power,” says ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a rose garden and a paradise.” The analogies of nature are all in favor of such view; the prophets of old have with one accord foretold the advent of such a glorious day; the signs of the times show clearly that profound and revolutionary changes in human ideas and institutions are even now in progress. What could be more futile and baseless therefore, than the pessimistic argument that, although all things else change, human nature cannot change?
Excerpt from
Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era
By J. E. ESSLEMONT
WORLD ORDER
The Bahá’í Magazine
VOLUME XIV MAY, 1948 NUMBER 2
Beauty and Art in the Bahá’í World
STANWOOD COBB
JUDAISM AND ISLAM
IS RELIGION antagonistic to art? From the observation of certain phases in religious history it might seem to be. On the other hand, religion has been the cause and the inspiration of the greatest art, in every field of esthetic expression.
Religion is not fundamentally opposed to the expression of beauty in the form of art. It is, however, fundamentally opposed to the expression of sensualism in the form of art. And it is from this innate and necessary opposition of religion to any form of art which is sensual in its motivation and expression that there have arisen whatever historic hostilities there may be of religion to art.
Judaism set itself in violent opposition to paganism and all of its expressions. This necessary attitude, together with something of an ultra-serious quality in the Jewish temperament, led to the traditional severity of the Hebrews toward most forms of art. Sculpture in all its forms was necessarily taboo. “Thou shalt make no graven image. . . .” This taboo was necessary because of the prevalence of idolatry around them. The orthodox Hebrews abominated the luxuries, effeminacies and sensualities of the urban cultures surrounding them. Theirs was a simple pastoral-agricultural society. Its spiritual purity and fidelity necessitated complete severance from the prevailing pagan cultures, which owed their worst vices to urbanization.
The same taboo carried over into Islám, so that in the development of Moslem art we find the depiction of the human figure forbidden. Instead, the art impulse of the Moslems ran to those abstract and geometrical expressions known to us as “arabesques.”
EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
A similar antagonism arose
between early Christianity and
[Page 40]
the pagan cultures of Greece and
Rome, which by the time of the
Christian Era were beginning to
express a depraved sensualism.
Pagan art in these first centuries
of Christianity was subjected to
a current of degeneracy which
moralists were unable to stem.
There was no possibility of reforming
this pagan culture!
Therefore, the injunction of the
apostles to their little flocks was
to withdraw from the life of the
world. The Christian communicants
had to begin to lead new
lives fully distinct from the life
of the past and present.
Christian antagonism to pagan art arose also from the fact that this art stemmed from polytheism and idolatry, and most of its creations had that motivation.
This antagonism of Christian zeal was responsible for a whole millenium of art-stultification and iconoclasm. The Christians not only avoided all forms of pagan art, but even tore down pagan temples for the construction of their own churches, and burned pagan statuary to get lime for their own constructions. Thus it has happened that the finest examples of classical statuary extant have been those buried through some cataclysm and thus preserved from early Christian iconoclasm until the latitudinarian and beauty-loving rulers of later Italy excavated them.
This period of cultural depression has been called the Dark Ages. The fault cannot be laid wholly to Christianity. The brutal overwhelming of all existing culture by successive invasions of Goths and Huns was a contributing factor.
Around the twelfth century, however, we see Christianity beginning to express itself in art forms, a movement which rapidly increased to a glorious crescendo at the height of the Middle Ages.
During the three centuries
from the twelfth to the fifteenth
a glorious blossoming of art took
place, art in all its marvelous
forms. The painting, music, statuary,
architecture of this period
—marvelous in its sincerity and
glowing beauty as techniques
progressed—has anything
equaled this since? Art critics
look back with longing eyes to
the beauties and perfections of
medieval art. The music of Palestrina;
the paintings of Giotto,
Fra Angelico, the Bellinis; the
anonymous statuary of this period
(anonymous because of the
deep humility of the artists concerned);
and the marvelous Gothic
cathedrals which climaxed
this art expression,—all of these
[Page 41]
are a proof that religion, far
from being antagonistic to true
and noble art, is its chief source
of inspiration.
Similarly, Buddhism exerted a tremendous influence upon oriental art in all countries that came under its inspiration. The exquisite quality of Chinese art —the power of the artist to lose himself in the object which he is depicting so as to render in painting or in carving the very essence and soul of the theme— this power all art critics have recognized as derived primarily from a mysticism that flowed from Buddhist teachings plus the teachings of the Tao.
RELIGION THE SOURCE OF ART FORMS
Religion will tend always to take a censorious position toward all forms of sensuality in art. It must by its very nature do so. For religion acts as a spiritual and ethical restraint upon human action and expression. Religion cannot afford to let art go about like a robber, stealing the virtue of her people; or as a pander, corrupting all morality.
On the other hand, art, for the very reason that it is sensuous and vivid, can exert a powerful influence for good.
Art cannot be harnessed to morality and religion; for art is a Pegasus and not a work-horse. But art can be, and should be, inspired from high rather than from low regions of the soul; from noble rather than ignoble sentiments and emotions.
And since art is essentially the expression of emotion, in the form of beauty, art which expresses the deepest and noblest emotions will tend to be greater art than that which flows from egocentric or trivial inspirations. That is why religion has historically been the source of the greatest art-forms produced upon this planet. The noblest architecture, the most exquisite sculpture, the greatest paintings, and the most grandly inspiring music of the world’s culture have been the expression of the exalted emotions of religion.
Can we not therefore expect the Bahá’í World Faith to blossom out into an art-expression at least equivalent to, and perhaps surpassing, those of past religious cultures?
BEAUTY AN ASPECT OF DEITY
There are many adequate grounds for the conviction that the Bahá’í World Faith will create more glorious forms of art in sculpture, painting, music and architecture than the world has yet realized.
Far from being antagonistic
to art, the Bahá’í Faith, in its
[Page 42]
mystic and deeply spiritual
teachings, emphasizes beauty as
an aspect of Deity.
Bahá’u’lláh frequently speaks of Divinity as being an expression of Beauty. “Make my goal the ardent quest of Thy resplendent, adorable and everlasting Beauty.”—“The portals of Thy grace have throughout eternity been open, and the means of access unto Thy Presence made available unto all created things, and the revelations of Thy matchless Beauty have at all times been imprinted upon the realities of all beings, visible and invisible.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá also has emphasized beauty as an attribute of God which we should not fail to recognize in the world about us. “. . . Do not seek the honors and loves of this world, seek rather God and His love, and then the honors and loves which belong to Him will be yours. All the glory of the heavens is His, all the beauty of the flowers, the scent of the roses and the colors of the sunset. But more than this the beauty of the soul is His, so that when you look long upon His beauty, it takes many forms and re-appears in your consciousness in many figures.”
The Bahá’í habit of associating, through the very words of their Prophet, divinity with beauty, and beauty with divinity will inevitably produce a sensitivity to earthly beauty in all its forms as a reflection of that Supernal Beauty worshipped by them. In fact we may expect Bahá’ís in future generations to have an esthetic sense far more refined and exquisite than that which prevails today.
The majority of people, in our contemporaneous culture, can appreciate beauty only at rare intervals. Witness the slapstick comedy which prevails in radio and the movies, interrupting any beauty in the program by the frequent interjection of buffoonery and clowning. To give their souls to the sustained appreciation of beauty is not possible to the majority of people in this day and generation.
Yet the capacity for the appreciation of beauty exists in every individual, being, as it were, an innate quality of the soul. The Bahá’ís of the future —trained to respect art and beauty, sensitized by spiritual devotion, and under the constant influence of the beauty of the living Word of God—will furnish audiences of a receptivity and innate taste such as the world has not heretofore known.
The stimulus of such sympathetic
and understanding audiences
upon Bahá’í creators in
[Page 43]
every field of art, enhanced by
their own inspiration as derived
from spiritually creative powers,
will produce an art of pure
beauty and grandeur surpassing
all performance of the past. A
Bahá’í writer has said, “When
we have become ‘blind to all
save His beauty’, the rapture and
mystery of His sojourn amongst
us will quicken its own exalted
response.—It has ever been the
challenge of a changed consciousness,
the glorious sense of
freedom and hopefulness, that
has given to the world its great
artistic periods.”
Not only has Bahá’u’lláh opened the consciousness of humanity to the realization of Divinity as beauty, but ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi have consistently evaluated and praised all forms of art as conducive to human happiness, culture, and progress. “We have made music as a ladder whereby the spirit of man may ascend to the Supreme Horizon,” says Bahá’u’lláh.
And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes mention on different occasions of the influence of music on the spirit of man: “Music is one of the important arts. It has a great effect upon the human spirit . . . In sooth, although music is a material affair, yet its tremendous effect is spiritual and its greatest attachment is to the realm of spirit.”
“In this Cause the art of music is of paramount importance,” He also says. Bahá’u’lláh, when He first came to the barracks (‘Akká), repeated this statement: ‘If among the immediate followers there had been those who could have played some musical instrument, that is, flute or harp, or could have sung, it would have charmed every one.’ In short, musical melody performs an important role in the associations, or outward and inward characteristics, or qualities of man, for it is the inspirer or motive power of both the material and spiritual susceptibilities.”
In another place ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that children must be taught the art of music, for “it will be the cause of the expression of latent talents . . . in their hearts.”
Shoghi Effendi speaks in the highest of terms of the value of art in its many forms of expression as an influence in human society:
“We have to wait only a few
years to see how the spirit
breathed by Bahá’u’lláh will find
expression in the work of the
artists,” writes his secretary to a
Bahá’í dramatist. “What you
and some other Bahá’ís are attempting,
are only faint rays that
[Page 44]
precede the effulgent light of a
glorious morn. We cannot yet estimate
the part the Cause is destined
to play in the life of society.
We have to give it time. The
material this spirit has to mould
is too crude and unworthy, but
it will at last give way, and the
Cause of Bahá’u’lláh will reveal
itself in its full splendor.”
An American Bahá’í, Grace Ober, who had the privilege of daily association with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá over a period of many months, presented at Green Acre to a conference on pageantry the following statement, as her impression of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s great expectations for art as an element in the coming Bahá’í civilization:
“That a great art will be the outcome of the Bahá’í civilization is inevitable. Every civilization created by a great religion in the past has flowered into forms of beauty. Sculpture, painting, architecture, music, drama and poetry have been the natural expression of greatly inspired epochs.
“Religion should not be conceived of as a mere insistence upon duty, a heightened ethics. If true religion is a revelation of goodness to the world, it brings with it also a revelation of beauty. The heart that sings in and with the love of Good, must of necessity create. The inspiration is powerful! The result is great art.
“The revealed truth of Bahá’u’lláh will not only inaugurate a more perfect civilization upon this globe; it will also give rise to art forms surpassing in beauty the utmost that the world has known. In music especially there will be a heightened power of creation, a vibrating power that will reveal to the soul of man ineffable beauties of the spiritual kingdom. The magic carrying power of the radio and its immense distributing power, will ultimately act as a powerful stimulus to the beauty both of composition and of performance. Instrumental music, which is now but in its infancy, will pass through an undreamed of revolution. Harmonious sound, said to be the language of the angels, will become a desired part of the daily life of man, and will freshen his inner and outer being.”
RELIGION AND LITERARY STYLE
We might give ourselves to
some conjecture as to how the
various arts may take on forms
of higher beauty than the soul of
man has yet expressed. There is
always a tendency to assume that
humanity has reached the acme
of progress and that there is
nothing that can be added. Yet
[Page 45]
we find science and invention
continuously expanding the horizons
of human thought and
knowledge and adding important
creations to the arts of living.
Why then should we not expect
art also to make continuous
progress, reflecting the progress
of the human race in refinement
of tastes and enhancement of creative
powers.
In literature it would be hard to conceive new forms coming into creation; but we can certainly conceive that the present forms may gain greatly in beauty, exquisiteness and grandeur.
It is a historic fact that the Word of God, as revealed to and cherished by its devotees, has exerted an enormous influence upon literary style. Strangely enough, this influence seems to be able to pass over from the original into translations, giving these translations something of the creative beauty of the Word itself and rendering them models for styles in their respective languages. Thus the King James version of the Bible stands unquestionably as the most beautiful English ever penned, and has been the model and inspiration of countless subsequent writers. Similarly, Calvin’s translation of the Bible into French became a model for French style; and Luther’s translation into German exerted a preponderant influence on German style. The Koran, considered by the Moslems to be the most beautiful Arabic in existence, has greatly influenced the style of Arabic and Persian writers.
If such be the case, we may expect a tremendous influence to flow out from the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, affecting all literary effort in the Bahá’í World, now and for centuries to come.
This influence will not only take the form of absorption from the Word of Bahá’u’lláh into the language of Bahá’í writers; but there will also be a new grace and beauty permeating Bahá’í writings, through the power of a new spiritual inspiration. An enhanced choice of language, a new sonority will characterize the planetary Bahá’í literature of the future. For let us not suppose that the English language, or any language for that matter, has yet reached the utmost beauty of expression of which it is capable. Not until inspired writers produce words that sing as sang the seraphs at the dawn of Creation, can language upon this planet be said to have reached its ultimate perfection.
MUSIC
In the art of music, especially,
there may be expected great developments.
[Page 46]
Modern composers
with their daring dissonances
have discovered new and subtler
beauties of orchestral and choral
forms—beauties that evoke new
esthetic reactions and responses
from the hearer. Debussy with
his whole-tone scale and his
juxtaposition of chords produced
effects of color in music. Debussy
himself had intended to
take up painting as a career, but
his love of color expressed itself
ultimately in music rather than
on the canvas. He claimed that
his music could produce “various
experiences and special effects
of light.” The cool, lovely
pastel shades of Debussy’s music
have made history and expanded
into a whole school of musical
impressionists.
New instruments have been invented and new scales experimented with. A certain Bahá’í composer has worked out a new scale of twenty-four notes, for which he is endeavoring to create a musical instrument.
Particularly in the field of choral music may we expect the achievement of new and unexpected beauties. Bahá’í composers of the future will undoubtedly be influenced by the spiritual glories of the Gregorian modes and their expression in liturgical music, as indeed one Bahá’í composer has already proved with a chant setting of a prayer of Bahá’u’lláh’s—a musical composition which equals in a brief compass some of the best of Gregorian music.
To one who has had the privilege of listening to such Gregorian music at its best, it verily seems that the heavens have been opened and the chants of angel choruses are descending upon earth. The writer has heard the Russian Church music magnificently rendered in some leading churches of Russia, in the Russian Embassy Church at Constantinople, and in the Russian Church of Paris. What is the secret of the unearthly beauty of these successions of sonorities as sung by Russian choirs? Nothing on this earth can equal it for sheer beauty and for spiritual upliftment. Whatever the techniques may be by which such ethereal music is created, one thing is certain—that this beauty flows from deep spiritual motivation on the part of its creators.
Pope Gregory, the founder of
the Gregorian chant, stated that
this great art of music (which
he called praying in terms of
beauty) “by charming the ear
should win the heart to a love of
heavenly things.” And the Council
of Aix la Chapelle in 816
A.D. stated: “The singer should
be trained so that not only the
[Page 47]
words he utters but the sweetness
of his singing may raise the
souls of his hearers to thoughts
of love of heavenly things.”[1]
We may expect significant developments in the field of the chant and of choral music in general by Bahá’í composers of the future, who will know how to draw the best from the liturgical music of the Catholic and Russian Churches and how to carry on into a new world of spiritual dynamics a music the technique of which undoubtedly is very ancient —tracing back to the chants of the early Christians, which were derived from the more ethereal of the Greek modes on the one hand and from the Jewish chant on the other, the latter undoubtedly stemming from an even more ancient source, that of Egypt, where the barbaric shepherds of Israel first acquired their musical culture.
ARCHITECTURE
In religious architecture the impact of Bahá’í inspiration is already being perceived. The Bahá’í Temple of Light on the shores of Lake Michigan in a suburb of Chicago stands as a living demonstration of new potencies in architectural inspiration. This temple is generally considered to be “the greatest architectural achievement of modern times.” When the model for this temple was first exhibited in New York City in 1921 the New York American said: “Many persons who have seen the model of this building say that it will be the most beautiful structure ever erected.” Architecture, a leading architectural magazine, in a full page article published this appreciation of H. Van Buren Magonigle, President of the Architectural League: “It is the first new idea in architecture since the thirteenth century.” Art and Architecture gave it an extended mention with a beautiful reproduction —saying, among other things: “So beautiful is this model and so different from anything man has ever before designed, either as an abode, or as a place of worship, that it has caused much discussion among architects and sculptors and in the newspapers.”
Professor Luigi Quaglino, ex-professor
of Architecture at
Turin, Italy, after admiring the
model for fully three hours declared:
“This is a new creation
[Page 48]
which will revolutionize architecture
in the world, and it is the
most beautiful I have ever seen.
Without doubt it will have a lasting
page in history. It is a revelation
from another world.” And
George Grey Barnard, widely
known American sculptor, pronounced
this temple “the greatest
creation since the Gothic period
and the most beautiful I
have ever seen.”
Whence came the inspiration for this unique architectural design? Its creator, Louis Jean Bourgeois, declared, “It is Bahá’u’lláh’s Temple, I am only the channel through which it came.” And he stated to the writer that this inspiration came to him during a period of prayer and fasting in the mountains of California.
The delicacy of detail in Bourgeois’s design, both exterior and interior, was such that at the time of its modeling no existing methods of construction could have been practicable. To carve it in marble would have run into many millions of dollars, and the designs were too delicate to cast in concrete. But by the time funds were ready to start its erection a marvelous new process had been invented by a Washington builder, John J. Earley—a method of moulding a mixture of crushed quartz and cement in monolithic castings from plaster moulds made from models carved in clay. This plastic material was capable of taking on the utmost delicacy of form which characterized Bourgeois’s exquisite model. And so the Bahá’í Temple stands majestically today on the shore of Lake Michigan—the major piece of ecclesiastical construction of this generation, visited yearly by thousands of sight-seers and included in all official sight-seeing tours of Chicago. Its influence will undoubtedly be felt in all Bahá’í religious architecture of the future.
A MORE IMPELLING BEAUTY
It is clear from the foregoing discussion that the Bahá’í Faith, far from opposing or frustrating the art impulse, will tremendously enhance this impulse among its followers and will ultimately give birth to glorious art creations surpassing anything of bygone ages.
Since art is the expression,
through established techniques,
of emotion and inspiration, there
is every reason to expect that
the Bahá’í Faith—with its great
universal principles, its warmth
of love to God and man, its conscious
and assured expectation
of a new world-order flowering
into a universal civilization—
will produce great and new art
[Page 49]
in every field of esthetic creation.
The trivialities and obscenities which characterize so much of modern art will be swept away by the insurgence of a deeper and more impelling beauty issuing from the inspirations of Bahá’í creativeness. We shall not in the future need censorship to prevent immorality in art. The power of beauty, goodness, and truth joined in one esthetic expression will prevail in a more spiritualized world over all trends of sensualism, triviality and evil. When the sun has arisen the smoky lanterns of wandering are extinguished.
- ↑ Records are available of renderings of both Catholic and Russian liturgical music based on the Gregorian modes. There is now available an album of such Gregorian music of the Catholic Church, as rendered by a choir of monks of the Abbey of St. Pierre de Solesmes (Victor album, 12538 to 12543.) Russian Church music rendered by Don Cossack Chorus—Columbia Masterworks 7355M, 4276M, 7272M—and Victor, 4574A & B. Columbia m.
. . . But the Cro-Magnon was above all a great artist. The paintings which adorn his caverns are often admirable. His sculptures, his engravings on bone and ivory are wonderfully realistic, his tools and his weapons are superbly decorated, his jewels and ornaments are remarkably ingenious and graceful. The height of the Cro-Magnon culture was probably reached 12,000 years ago.
These useless manifestations—this word is taken in the sense of “not absolutely necessary to maintain or defend life”—mark the most important date in all the history of mankind. They are the proof of the progress of the human spirit in the direction of evolution, that is, in the direction leading away from the animal . . .
. . . The new being, Man, changes his master. He escapes from the grasp of the physico-chemical and biological laws. Esthetic desires and ideas are born in him and can be materialized by his hands. . . . The sense of beauty is revealed to him. He adorns himself, he seeks and combines colors. His weapons and his tools must be something more than utilitarian intruments. They must be beautiful. . . . The appearance of the esthetic sense, which very quickly reaches an extraordinarily high level, is the first tangible evidence of the new orientation of evolution, the real origin of pure thought. The esthetic sense is the primitive source of intelligence, of symbolism, of writing, of all the means which will condition future development.
Reprinted by permission from Human Destiny (Longmans, Green & Co., Inc., New York, copyright 1947) pp. 125-127.
Freedom from Fear
GERTRUDE SCHURGAST
No one is completely happy
unless he is free from fear.
Even if we possess all worldly
treasures, like youth and beauty,
health and wealth, we may be
all the more unhappy, for we
may be filled with fear, the fear
of losing them.
From the cradle to the grave we are beset by fear. The child feels safe and happy in his mother’s loving arms, but at some time or other he too may have experienced the dread feeling of fear. In his story books appears again and again the sinister figure of the wolf as the symbol of fear, and I think the rather unpleasant story of the three little pigs enjoys such popularity among the children, only because here the wolf is finally outsmarted, fear is conquered.
We as adults, however, are not always successful in outsmarting, conquering fear. As we grow older, our fears grow with us. We may try to suppress them, run away from them, drown them in alcohol and drugs, but they still are with us.
Whole countries may be swayed by fear. Like young boys picking up sticks for their protection, nations keep on spending money for armaments in order to be “prepared”, and threaten each other with atomic bombs. Let us remember the words of our late President Roosevelt, who in his inaugural address said, “Our country has nothing to fear but fear itself.”
If we as individuals succeed in conquering our fears and become free and happy, the big nation-wide problems will be solved more easily.
One expression of fear is all those innumerable daily little worries that spoil our peace of mind and are such a waste of time. Things like: “How will I be able to fix my hair when it gets thin?” or, “How will I ever get up this hill twenty years from now?” We cross ever so many bridges “before we come to the river,” and the chances are that those particular rivers we are afraid of never come. Usually we find ourselves dead and buried before we ever get into that predicament we dreaded so.
To be afraid is like standing
by the window in a warm, cozy
room and looking out onto a cold
and dreary street, with the wind
shaking the trees and the rain
beating against the glass, and
you feel warm and secure and
bless your stars that you don’t
[Page 51]
have to go out into this dreadful
weather. But suppose you should
put on your hat and raincoat
and your overshoes and go out.
It would not seem half as bad
as it looked from the inside.
Perhaps the wind and the rain
on your forehead would feel
good, and you might return home
refreshed and braced. Spiritually
speaking, we sometimes do
have to go through storms of
trials and tribulations, but our
protection there is the knowledge
that God sends us those as
tests, and we come out of them
ever so much happier and freer.
One of my friends I have known since school had, as a rich man’s daughter, led a very sheltered life during her youth and was afraid of insecurity and poverty to a point that she felt inferior to any working girl. She was ill-poised and awkward, and her hands began to tremble whenever she felt “watched.” Later on she lost her money and that proved to be her salvation. How proud she was when she brought home her first pay check, and how surprised, that she had actually earned it. From that moment on she lost her fear and carried her share of the hardships and vicissitudes of life with an an undaunted, cheerful courage that became an inspiration to her friends.
Another friend once told me, “I have always been afraid of two things, divorce and rattlesnakes. Well, I had to find myself another husband and now I thank God for letting me be so happy. But then we had to live in a country infested with rattlesnakes, and there I discovered that they were more afraid of me than I was of them. So we get along fine.”
“Better for you is what He possesseth than the things ye yourselves possess,” says Bahá’u’lláh. But it may take us a lifetime to recognize that truth. A woman may love her children or her husband with such abundant, such possessive love that it blots out all other love, even the love of God, although Bahá’u’lláh admonishes us over and over again to “rid ourselves of all attachments to any one except Him.”
Such a woman is bound to suffer disappointment and heartbreak. Her happiness is like a beautiful apple ripening on a tree in her yard. Anxiously she watches it from her window day after day, sees it grow bigger and rosier, not knowing that inside a worm is boring, the worm of fear, till suddenly, one day she finds it gone, smashed on the ground, a rotten mass.
Our sorrows are blessings in
[Page 52]
disguise. With every one that
comes to us God takes us by the
hand and leads us a step forward
and upward. If we would only
trust Him. In the Seven Valleys
by Bahá’u’lláh we find the stirring
story of the lover who is
desperately looking for his beloved
but cannot find her anywhere.
He suddenly discovers
that he is followed by guards
who take him for a criminal and
surround him on all sides, till
finally he is driven against a
blank wall from where there
seems no escape. In a desperate
effort he attempts to climb over
the wall and finally succeeds in
scaling it and dropping down to
safety on the other side. And
there, lo and behold, is his beloved
whom he has been looking
for so long in vain.
This story has a deep symbolic significance. As this young man later blessed the cruel guards who had led him to the object of his quest, we too may bless events that bring us bitter disappointments and trials, but in reality lead us on to greater happiness and nearer to God.
Freed from another fear! One by one they fall off us until finally we recognize it is one fear that drives away all other fears. This one fear is the fear of God. It is the one fear that makes us happy, free, secure. “Gottesfurcht” the Germans call it. In this word, perhaps more than in the English is the meaning of respectful devotion, humility. “And whoever has learned to fear God,” as George Townshend says, “becomes thereby immune to all other fears.” To obey His divine Laws is to be safe.
Last summer I attended a session at the International Bahá’í School in Colorado Springs. I wanted to meet believers who had courage enough to volunteer to go alone to foreign countries to spread the Glad Tidings of Bahá’u’lláh. If I were free and called upon to do it, would I be able to do this? I was “scared to death.” In that wonderful spirit of love and companionship which permeated the very atmosphere of Temerity Ranch, I lost even that fear. I woke up one night—I slept on the glass enclosed porch of the lovely house —and touched the brick wall near my bed. I felt so safe, so happy and secure, as the little pig must have felt in his brick house. Only here there was not even a chimney through which the wolf could come down.
Here, perhaps, for the first time, I understood what the Love of God is. It surrounds us, protects us, carries us. “My Love is thy stronghold. He that entereth therein is safe and secure.”
The Work of Bahá’ís
in Promotion of Human Rights
THE Bahá’í international community
believes that all human
beings have the right to live
in a society whose laws and institutions
conform to the truths
of a progressive and universal
religion.
This belief is sustained by faith in a divine order. It awakens moral responsibility to work for the fulfillment of human rights in a unified world. It recognizes the fact that before rights can be established in truth or in statute there must be among the people a condition of spiritual worthiness.
Bahá’ís work to promote human rights in a number of ways.
First, the individual in his personal life seeks to divest his heart of prejudices handed down from his forefathers or prevalent in his civilization. His faith makes it incumbent on him to evaluate persons as human beings without respect to race, class, nationality or creed. He strives to attain by prayer, by meditation and by spiritual education a firm understanding of the central Bahá’í teaching, the oneness of mankind. Short of world order and peace the Bahá’í sees no human authority or power able to establish new and higher human rights or even to safeguard ancient rights long regarded as minimum decencies of communal existence.
Second, all Bahá’ís are members of an international religious community which applies in its internal relationships the attitudes of a world society. What is virtue in the individual upholds the principle and practice of justice in the group. Each Bahá’í shares equally in the fellowship of a supra-racial, supra-national and supra-sectarian order. He worships and breaks bread together with his fellows in a unity now spread to eighty-eight countries, representing more than thirty races and all the great revealed faiths. The emotion of unity rests on the Bahá’í administrative principle which creates authority by election through secret ballot of all adult members without nomination or partisan machinery. Nor has this community any division into ecclesiastical and lay bodies. In the Bahá’í faith a professional clergy is forbidden.
Third, the very existence of so
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widespread and varied a community
can serve the cause of human
rights by demonstrating that
under certain conditions the spirit
of equality and cooperation
can prevail. In this far-flung
fellowship embracing the white
and the dark peoples, the oriental
and the occidental, the poor
and the rich, the Bahá’ís have
developed a small but significant
area of spiritual peace. Their
aim is to generate by union the
moral force needed to create institutions
imbued with a world
outlook, independent of the self-centered
cultures and philosophies
evolved in the past.
Fourth, the Bahá’í community, acting through its various local and national organs, conducts more and more vigorously a work of public education on behalf of human rights. This work includes: publication of books and pamphlets in nearly fifty languages; publication of magazines; operation of summer schools in six countries public conferences and lectures maintained in hundreds of cities. A statement entitled “A Bahá’í Declaration of Human Obligations and Rights” was presented to United Nations Human Rights Commission in February, 1947.
This statement was prepared by request
of the United Nations Committee
organizing the Human Rights Conference
at Geneva, Switzerland, on May 19
and 20, 1948, which Bahá’í representatives
have been invited to attend. It will be
used in the working papers furnished to
all the participants. Last year the United
Nations accredited the American National
Spiritual Assembly as a non-governmental
organization. Recently the eight Bahá’í
National Assemblies, acting jointly as the
Bahá’í International Community, have
been accredited as an international non-governmental
organization. The other National
Assemblies have authorized the
American NSA to represent them in relation
to the United Nations.
The Great Rehearsal
Editorial
THE story is told on an American
government official who
had consulted ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about
his future. That great Exile,
Who had spent forty years of
His life in prison, advised him:
“You can best serve your country
if you strive in your capacity
as a citizen of the world, to assist
in the eventual application
of the principle of federalism
underlying the government of
your own country to the relationships
now existing between the
peoples and nations of the
world.”
It is therefore of particular interest to Bahá’ís to read of the step by step development of the Constitution of the United States which made a federation of the loosely-leagued thirteen original states. Carl Van Doren in his significantly entitled book, The Great Rehearsal[1], emphasizes the wide divergence of viewpoint which made the formation of the federal government of this country a difficult, almost insurmountable task.
In 1787, all of the states had militia which were like independent armies. Nine of them had navies of their own. Some of them levied customs duties on the products entering from other states. A few were negotiating separate treaties with foreign powers as if they were independent nations. Several issued their own paper money. When the delegates met at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that year they were similar in their fears and their attitudes to the diplomats who met in San Francisco to form the Charter of the United Nations.
Many were the men in 1787
who declared they would be sacrificing
their liberty if they consented
to give up any of their
state sovereignty to a national
superstate. They argued that the
Northern states would dominate
Congress and legislate to the disadvantage
of the Southern states.
The large states, some feared,
would ride roughshod over the
interests of the small states until
the latter would be reduced to
mere satellites without independent
voice. The men from the
cities of the Atlantic seaboard
had visions of the day when the
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frontiersmen would outnumber
them and considered limiting the
number of states that could enter
the union. At the same time,
delegates from the rural areas
were fearful that they would be
overtaxed and tyrannized by a
majority of city aristocrats.
Many feared a dictatorship or a
monarchy.
Mr. Van Doren traces the day by day sessions of that Constitutional Convention, quoting from the opposition and quoting from the speeches of James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and men like them, who were convinced that the peace and prosperity of the nation depended upon the formation of a strong national government. One after another objections were overcome and compromises were reached balancing the powers given to the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government. Differences were reconciled, fears dispelled.
The world has yet to see the day when the delegates from the United Nations will meet together to cement their union in a federation of the whole world, but public opinion is gradually coming to favor such a tremendous and far-reaching step. In 1931, Shoghi Effendi, in The Goal of A New World Order, sent to the American Bahá’ís these hopeful words: “How confident were the assertions made in the days preceeding the unification of the states of the North American continent regarding the insuperable barriers that stood in the way of their ultimate federation! Was it not declared that the conflicting interests, the mutual mistrusts, the differences of government and habit that divided the states were such as no force, whether spiritual or temporal, could ever hope to harmonize and control? And yet how different were the conditions prevailing a hundred and fifty years ago from those that characterize present day society! It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that the absence of those facilities which modern scientific progress has placed at the service of humanity in our time made the problem of welding the American states into a single federation, similar though they were in certain traditions, a task infinitely more complex than that which confronts a divided humanity in its efforts to achieve the unification of all mankind.”
- ↑ New York: The Viking Press, 1948.
Mystic Ode of Háfiz
Translated by
SIR WILLIAM JONES
- In wide eternity’s vast space,
- Where no beginning was, wert Thou:
- The rays of all-pervading grace
- Beneath Thy veil flamed on Thy brow.
- Then love and nature sprang to birth,
- And life and beauty filled the earth.
- Awake, my soul! pour forth thy praise,
- To that great Being anthems raise—
- That wondrous Architect who said,
- “Be formed,” and this great orb was made.
- Since first I heard the blissful sound—
- “To man My Spirit’s breath is given”;
- I knew, with thankfulness profound,
- His sons we are—our home is heaven.
- Oh give me tidings that shall tell
- When I may hope with Thee to dwell,
- That I may quit this world of pain,
- Nor seek to be its guest again.
- A bird of holiness am I,
- That from the vain world’s net would fly:
- Shed, bounteous Lord, one cheering shower
- From Thy pure cloud of guiding power,
- Before, even yet, the hour is come,
- When my dust rises toward its home.
- What are our deeds?—all worthless, all—
- Oh, bring devotion’s wine,
- That strength upon my soul may fall
- From drops Thou mad’st divine.
- The world’s possessions fade and flee,
- The only good is—loving Thee!
- O happy hour! when I shall rise
- From earth’s delusions to the skies,
- Shall find my soul at rest, and greet
- The traces of my loved one’s feet:
- Dancing with joy, whirled on with speed,
- Like motes that gorgeous sunbeams feed,
- Until I reach the fountain bright
- Whence yonder sun derives his light.
The Motive Power
GLADYS KLINE
THE Bahá’í Teachings reveal
clearly that events of human
history, as they are enacted
on the stage of life, make manifest
the Grand Design as conceived
by God and bring into the
realm of reality that which was
decreed by the Will of the Almighty.
Bahá’u’lláh teaches that the succession of happenings in world history, with all its mighty surgings, is the unfoldment of a master-scheme born in the mind of the Creator “in the beginning that hath no beginning.” It is evident that every nation, every race, in fact every individual, has a designated place in the all-inclusive plan of the Eternal. All existence revolves, however remotely it may seem, about a central theme. All its parts are coordinated and are set in their due place as predetermined by the intelligent will of a pre-existing Lord.
Bahá’u’lláh bears witness to this fact, when He says, “The one true God hath everlastingly existed, and will everlastingly continue to exist. His creation, likewise, hath had no beginning, and will have no end. All that is created, however, is preceded by a Cause. This fact, in itself, establisheth, beyond the shadow of a doubt the unity of the Creator.”
Jesus’ statements likewise prove that an eternal pattern had existed in the mind of God from the beginning, for, when speaking to His disciples of the Last Judgment, He said, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
It is because of the love of God towards the Self or Identity of God, that He willed a creation to reflect His attributes,—knowledge and power, sovereignty and dominion, mercy and wisdom, glory, bounty and grace. In Hidden Words, this is made clear when Bahá’u’lláh says, “O Son of Man! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.” Further, from the words of Bahá’u’lláh we learn that “the purpose of God in creating man hath been, and ever will be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His presence.”
However, there must be a divine
Intermediary between God
and His creatures for them to
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know and to love Him, as the infinite
does not descend to the
plane of the finite. At no points
do these two worlds have contact,
as “no tie of direct intercourse
can possibly bind” God to His
creatures. According to the
teachings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a
lower degree of creation cannot
understand or gain knowledge of
a higher degree, inasmuch as
“difference of degree is an obstacle
or hindrance to comprehension.”
Bahá’u’lláh opens
wide the door to this knowledge
and reveals the mission of the
Prophets to mankind by declaring
these mighty words, “The
door of the knowledge of the
Ancient Being hath ever been,
and will continue forever to be,
closed in the face of men. No
man’s understanding shall ever
gain access unto His holy court.
As a token of His mercy, however,
and as a proof of His loving
kindness, He hath manifested
unto men the Day Stars of His
divine guidance, the Symbols of
His divine unity, and hath ordained
the knowledge of these
sanctified Beings to be identical
with the knowledge of His own
Self. Whoso recognizeth them
hath recognized God. Whoso
hearkeneth to their call, hath
hearkened to the Voice of God,
and whoso testifieth to the truth
of their Revelation, hath testified
to the truth of God Himself.
Whoso turneth away from them,
hath turned away from God, and
whoso disbelieveth in them, hath
disbelieved in God. Every one
of them is the Way of God that
connecteth this world with the
realms above, and the Standard
of His Truth unto to every one in
the kingdoms of earth and heaven.
They are the Manifestations
of God amidst men, the evidences
of His Truth and the
signs of His glory.”
The Divine Plan of creation decreed by the Almighty Will of the Lord of All Worlds is indeed beyond the comprehension of the finite mind in its minute detail of perfection, its magnitude and its illimitable power. The impelling force which lies behind creation is the love of God. Foreseeing that man would need help in acquiring knowledge of Himself, the unknowable Essence, God provided mankind with His Manifestations to serve “as vehicles for the transmission of the Grace of Divinity itself,” and endowed him with powers whereby this knowledge can be acquired.
From the distant past, we hear
David, the Psalmist, raising his
voice in interrogation, “When I
consider Thy heavens, the work
of Thy fingers, the moon and the
stars, which Thou hast ordained;
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what is man that Thou art mindful
of him, and the son of man,
that Thou visitest him?” We listen,
—and we hear these words
which have lived through the
ages. They reveal David’s high
opinion of the dignity and power
of man and that his creation and
endowments were pre-designed
by the Will of God. “Thou hast
made him a little lower than the
angels and hast crowned him
with glory and honor. Thou madest
him to have dominion over
the works of Thy hands; Thou
has put all things under his
feet.”
Yet, what are these capacities that have crowned man “with glory and honor” that he may attain the divine perfections and acquire the heavenly virtues fore-ordained for him in the magnificent scheme of God? Bahá’u’lláh gives a significant answer to the seeker’s inquiry in Gleanings, when He says, “Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him,—a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation. . . . Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names, and made it the recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things man hath been singled out for so great a favor, so enduring a bounty.”
Man is further assured of
gifts bestowed upon him, by
these words of Bahá’u’lláh,
“Know thou that, according to
what thy Lord, the Lord of all
men, hath decreed in His Book,
the favors vouchsafed by Him
unto mankind have been, and
will ever remain, limitless in
their range. First and foremost
among these favors, which the
Almighty hath conferred upon
man, is the gift of understanding.
His purpose in conferring such
a gift is none other except to enable
His creature to know and
recognize the one true God—
exalted be His glory. This gift
giveth man the power to discern
the truth in all things, leadeth
him to that which is right, and
helpeth him to discover the
secrets of creation. Next in rank,
is the power of vision, the chief
instrument whereby his understanding
can function. The
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senses of hearing, of the heart,
and the like, are similarly to be
reckoned among the gifts with
which the human body is endowed.”
Among the many gifts
bestowed upon man, another one
which should be emphasized and
“is preeminent above all other
gifts, is incorruptible in nature,
and pertaineth to God Himself is
the gift of Divine Revelation.”
All other gifts are “subservient
unto this” and he “who hath recognized
God’s Manifestation in
this day has “partaken of this
highest gift of God.”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that “God has created man lofty and noble; made him a dominant factor in creation. He has specialized man with supreme bestowals, conferred upon him mind, perception, memory, abstraction and the powers of the senses. These gifts of God to man were intended to make him the manifestation of divine virtues, a radiant light in the world of creation, a source of life and the agency of constructiveness in the infinite fields of existence.”
Too, meditation, which is the life of the soul, is a faculty conferred upon man through which he may attain “to eternal life” and “receive the breath of the Holy Spirit.” It is not spotty, hasty reading but rather reflection and meditation upon the Word of God that proves to be of worth to the soul, for the “faculty of meditation frees man from the animal nature, discerns the reality of things, puts man in touch with God.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá exhorts us: “Investigate and study the Scriptures word by word so that you may attain knowledge of the mysteries hidden therein. Be not satisfied with words, but seek to understand the spiritual meanings hidden in the heart of the words.”
To what conclusion do we arrive
when we reflect and meditate
upon this majestic Design
as conceived and brought into existence
by the Will of God? It
is this—Love is the motivating
force that lies behind this moving,
unfolding, evolving plan as
decreed by the will of the All-Powerful
from the beginning
that hath no beginning to the end
which hath no end. Love also motivates
this Revelation. By the
three Light Bearers, the Báb,
Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
love is revealed as the “originative
and supporting principle of
all existence.” This is proved by
Bahá’u’lláh’s declaration in Hidden
Words, “I loved thy creation,
hence I created thee.
Wherefore, do thou love Me, that
I may name thy name, and fill
thy soul with the spirit of life.”
That God extends an invitation to
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His creatures to enter into His
paradise of love is shown by
these beautiful, inspiring words
which flow from the pen of Bahá’u’lláh,
“Thy Paradise is My
love; thy heavenly home reunion
with Me. Enter therein and
tarry not. This is that which has
been destined for thee in Our
kingdom above and Our exalted
dominion.”
However, it is imperative for man to purify his heart of self, to sever himself from all save God and to desire naught save what God desires if he is to acquire God’s love in his heart. This abnegation of self-will and of self-desires is absolutely necessary if man is to attain eternal life. It is essential that he habitually submit his will with “radiant acquiescence” to the will of God, for “there is no peace for thee save through renouncing thyself and turning unto Me; for it behooveth thee to glory in My name, not in thine own; to put thy trust in Me and not in thyself, since I desire to be loved alone and above all that is.”
This admonition is given by Bahá’u’lláh to all who desire eternal life, “O Son of Dust! Blind thine eyes, that thou mayest behold My beauty; stop thine ears, that thou mayest hearken unto the sweet melody of My voice; empty thyself of all learning that thou mayest partake of My knowledge; and sanctify thyself from riches, that thou mayest obtain a lasting share from the ocean of My eternal wealth. Blind thine eyes, that is, to all save My beauty; stop thine ears to all save My word; empty thyself of all learning save the knowledge of Me; that with a clear vision, a pure heart and an attentive ear thou mayest enter the court of My holiness.”
With high resolve and purpose,
let us, as lovers of God,
arise to fill our place designated
by the will of God and declare
with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that “love is
the principle of God’s holy Dispensation,
the Manifestation of
the All-Merciful, the fountain of
spiritual outpourings. Love is
heaven’s kindly light, the Holy
Spirit’s eternal breath that vivifies
the human soul. Love is the
cause of God’s Revelation unto
man, the vital bond inherent according
to divine creation in the
essence of things. Love is the one
means that ensures true felicity
both in this world and in the
next. Love is the light that guides
in darkness, the living link that
unites God with man, that assures
the progress of every illumined
soul. Love is the supreme
law that rules this mighty and
heavenly cycle, the sole power
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that binds together the divine
elements of this material world,
the supreme magnetic force that
directs the movements of the
spheres in the celestial realms.
Love reveals with unfailing and
limitless power the mysteries latent
in the universe. Love is the
spirit of life within the beautified
body of mankind; it establishes
true civilization in this
mortal world, and sheds imperishable
glory upon every aspiring
race and nation. . . .”
GLIMPSING ONENESS
MAYE HARVEY GIFT
- My spirit reaches, as with eager arms,
- In longing to enfold the universe
- Within its catholic embrace.
- “The universe,” it cries, “not this mere Earth.
- For there is newly born within my depths
- A knowledge of my kinship with all life.
- “Have not the atoms of my outer robe
- Had timeless coursings through the distant stars?
- Were they not locked in silent majesty
- Within the purple mountain’s gold-veined heart?
- Did they not blossom into loveliness
- Within the fragrant petals of the rose?
- Have they not roamed throughout far-stretching plains,
- Partaking of the sentient attributes
- Of bird, of bison, of gazelle?
- “Search through all space, O thou my brother man,
- And tell me of one moon, one swelling sea,
- One trackless forest’s tangled maze,
- That through the centuries, nay, eons past
- Hath not been busied secretly,
- Preparing for thy sojourn here, and mine,
- Rare robes of mingled beauty and of light!”
SOMEONE has said that the fact
that a book with this title,
“Peace of Mind,” is ranked among
the best sellers is significant of our
times. If people had peace of mind
the title would not attract them as
it does. And, indeed, the author of
the book, Joshua L. Liebman, speaking
from a wide experience in trying
to help people to find peace of
mind, says there is no doubt that
ours is a sick age.
The purpose of his book is to show how psychoanalysis can help the individual to attain inner stability and serenity. Rabbi Liebman, a well-known preacher and speaker on the radio, discusses the human shortcomings which cause modern soul-sickness. These might be summarized as inability to accept the “pummelings of fate and fortune” and to get rid of weak or evil emotions. Partial remedies are listening to music or contemplating other works of art, but the peace this brings is temporary. False remedies, too often used, are alcohol and barbiturates. Attempting to repress weak or evil emotion is also, according to our author, a false remedy. The man or woman, he says, who attempts by his own will power to repress evil emotion, such as hate or sensual desires, not only is unsuccessful, but often these attempts actually bring in their wake disease. Some better remedies suggested are arousing desire to emulate heroes, emphasizing our innate tendency to love and making use of oral confession of the destructive emotions.
Attempting to repress such emotions is shown to be like trying to blow out an electric light. The right way is to find the switch that turns on the light, then turn it off. In oral confession to a wise psychoanalyst the patient, to quote Dr. Liebman, “as he expresses his angers, resentments, passion, lusts and envies begins to see them in perspective. He realizes how absurd and out of place these long repressed impulses are in the total emotional economy of his adult life. He comes to understand their origin in the turmoil of his childhood and their meaninglessness in the larger framework of his present values and thus freely rejects them in the creative light of his newly won understanding.” That is, we might say, the psychoanalyst helps the patient to a better understanding of himself.
The book deals with the whole
range of weak or evil emotions
which many people try in vain to
conquer. Fear is the most common
of these emotions and assumes many
forms. It is a God-given emotion,
given us for self-protection, but it
often develops into morbidity. It
takes the form of worry about our
health, our personalities, our lack of
self-confidence, our general sense of
inferiority. Sometimes fear clothes
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itself in the garment of physical
pain. Thomas Mann, the distinguished
German novelist, in his book,
“The Magic Mountain,” shows how
some over-sensitive, fearful persons
found refuge in tuberculosis rather
than face the actual battle of life.
This fear of life in general sometimes comes to people when they fail in business or their profession. It may result in nervous invalidism, but if the patient finds a wise counselor to whom he can open his heart, and if he learns how common is failure, especially in first attempts, he soon recovers and takes up the burden of life again.
Feelings of inferiority or inadequacy, which are a form of fear, frequently have their origin, says Dr. Liebman, in some childhood experiences when the individual really was inadequate. Such feelings have no place in adult life; and when the person who is troubled with feelings of inadequacy or inferiority sees them as relics of childhood he sloughs them off. Everyone, Mr. Liebman says, has an innate desire not to be childish—to grow up. Thus, through a sympathetic understanding, brought about by the patient’s self-revelation, the good psychoanalyst helps the patient to a better balance in his emotional life.
Besides tracing our shortcomings to childhood experience, the psychoanalyst makes use of a more tolerant conscience pattern. Mr. Liebman thinks that the traditional religious ideals of love, perfection, chastity are too lofty for human nature and that people torture themselves in trying to attain the unattainable. He advises people to recognize their animal instincts, “basic drives,” as he calls them. Instead of trying unsuccessfully to repress them the patient should talk them out to a good psychoanalyst, who shows him that they are a part of his pluralistic nature and shows him how to occupy his mind and life with worthwhile thought, feelings and activities.
Two chapters on love are titled “Love Thyself Properly” and “Love or Perish.” He shows in the first that in order to obey the great commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” we must first learn to love ourselves properly. Many people hate themselves. The so-called inferiority complex is a form of self-hate. One cause of this is an exaggerated idea of the perfection of others. If we truly knew them we should find that they are not the finished product we imagine, but they too have their struggles. We must learn to know and respect ourselves, to stop struggling for what others are or have and to find and develop our own talents. We must learn, too, to accept failure as one of the valuable experiences of life.
In the chapter called “Love or
Perish” our author tells us that
love of others is the most essential
element in human living. At some
time in his development the individual
must love or become warped
in character. Love is an innate
emotion and necessitates giving of
one’s self. He calls tolerance a form
of love and defines tolerance as a
sincere desire to understand others.
Here again, in this matter of love, he
says, we must not demand perfection
of ourselves. Such a demand
implies excessive self love. Genuine
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adult love implies treasuring the
best of our own traits for what they
can do for others, giving and receiving
love, but avoiding possessive
love, love that seeks to make love
a tool for gaining mastery over
others or yielding oneself as slave
to others.
Towards the end of the book are chapters on God, immortality and the problem of evil. Inability to believe in God is one of the great weaknesses of our time. Many are unable to believe in God or have such a washed-out conception of God that it does not support them in crisis. Mr. Liebman thinks this lack of belief in God comes generally from some experience in childhood or adolescence which destroyed their confidence in life. Adolescent disagreement with parents sometimes leads to throwing over parents’ religious ideas. Then there are agnostics, often people who don’t know whether to believe in God or not. Some solve the problem by keeping in the church and trying to lead blameless lives. There are weak believers, some who believe in God as long as life is good to them and some who have an anthropomorphic idea of God.
Dr. Liebman’s treatment of the existence of evil is helpful, bringing out the need of the individual’s having a free will and also the benefits that may come from suffering. He adds the suggestive thought that unexplained suffering often comes from society and that society may yet prove to be our supreme benediction.
His last chapter is on religion and psychology, which he describes as twin angels. Each has its function and each is necessary. Religion seeks to help both normal and abnormal people, but psychology seeks to help only the abnormal. It can dispel only abnormal fears, but cannot give the hope and trust which come only from a belief in God.
When one applies the glass of perspective to the theories given in this book, one may well be encouraged. For many years now, the best minds in the world have recognized that the world is sick and have been trying to diagnose the sickness and prescribe the remedy. Our economic, social and personal institutions and ideals have been searched. There was a time when an attempt was made to trace all our modern evils to our economic system. Attention of many then veered to our social system and this led us to the personal angle. The minds and actions of individuals were scrutinized. When people give way to animal-like traits, which are really the cause of most ill doing, why is it? Behaviorism came forward and showed that these traits can be traced to our animal heritage, and the logical conclusion seemed to be that the individual is not responsible when he runs amuck. This idea resulted in condoning crime and doubtless had the effect of increasing it. Now we have psychiatry, which seeks, in the human mind and emotions, upward as well as downward trends. Its main motto seems to be “know thyself, respect thyself, love thyself.”
How do these ideals compare with
the Bahá’í ideals? “Know thyself” is
certainly brought out in the Bahá’í
teachings. Bahá’u’lláh expresses it
in these words: “Man should know
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his own self and know those things
which lead to loftiness or to baseness,
to shame or to honor, to affluence
or to poverty. After man has
realized his own being and become
mature, then for him wealth is
needed.” He adds that this wealth
should be acquired through a craft
or profession. Psychiatry at its best
seems to have this same aim, to
help people to become become mature
through distinguishing between good
and evil and learning what leads to
each.
Mr. Liebman has a good deal to say about the exaggerated demands of conscience. He feels that the current religions hold impossibly high ideals. Another contemporary writer brings out something of the same idea. Are not, he asks, the ideals of Christianity far beyond the attainment of a creature such as man, who has taken ages to make such moral advance as he has attained?
It is true that all revealed religions hold up very high ideals. Christ said, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” He enjoined love of enemies, chastity in thought as well as in act, and, in general, made the ideal one of heart and mind, not merely of act.
The Jewish Scriptures counsel us to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and our neighbor as ourself. The ideals taught by other great prophets such as Buddha and Muḥammad are also very lofty. Why does the modern individual recoil from such ideals and seek what Mr. Liebman calls a more tolerant conscience pattern? Is not the trouble with us moderns that we have lost the ability to get Divine help in our strivings for better lives and also have lost the realization of the meaning of Divine forgiveness?
The central truth of all revealed religion is that supernatural power to develop our higher self is available to all and that it comes to us through great characters divinely inspired to reveal God’s will for the coming age and to communicate to receptive souls the power to carry out God’s commands. The channel through which this power flows is this Revealer of God’s will, or Manifestation, as the Bahá’í Faith calls Him. He has unlimited power to influence the human heart, to guide it along paths of ever expanding love and peace. But the human heart of its own free will must turn to the Manifestation. We cannot experience the love of God and the love of man that comes with it until we turn our innate capacity to love, towards God through His Manifestation.
Bahá’u’lláh says that this power may be imparted through the person of the Manifestation, through His Revelation or through the words He utters or writes.
Instances are given of people who
associated with Bahá’u’lláh whose
lives were completely changed, even
though they did not recognize Him
as a Manifestation of God. A story
is told from the time when Bahá’u’lláh
was living in Baghdád.
There was a colonel in the Turkish
army who received $2,000 a month
from the Turkish government and
was expected to give $2 to each
soldier with the stipulation that
when war broke out he would bring
1,000 strong soldiers into the army.
[Page 69]
But he gave each soldier $1 and
pocketed the rest. He had 10 colored
men in his personal service whom
he treated shamefully. One day this
man came to see Bahá’u’lláh, and
soon he came frequently. He gave
ear to Bahá’u’lláh’s advice. Little by
little a magic change came over him.
One day he called his regiment together
and told them that he had
been depriving them of half their
pay, but now he asked their pardon.
From now on they were to receive
their full pay of $2 a month. Then
he went home and called his servants
together, told them he was sorry
for his past conduct to them, that
he would try to make amends by being
kind to them from now on, and
would treat them as if they were his
real sons. He carried out these promises.
His Negro sons came to love
him. In his will he left them one
fourth of his property. This was one
of the miracles of Bahá’u’lláh. This
man did not know Bahá’u’lláh as a
Manifestation of God. To those who
recognized Him as a Manifestation
of God came an even greater and
more universal love and a faith and
enthusiasm that made them ready to
face suffering and death calmly and
even radiantly, for they gained
through Bahá’u’lláh complete trust
in God.
And we know that the history of every great Faith shows what power the immediate followers of the Manifestation, those who had personal contact with their great Leader, had —power to undergo all hardships joyfully, to lay down their lives in triumphant martyrdom. Witness the lives of the twelve apostles, the heroism of those closely associated with Muḥammad, the complete courage and devotion of the early followers of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh.
This power is transmitted, too, to those who do not come in contact with the person of the Manifestation, but who believe in His Revelation. Most of the noble army of Christian martyrs had never seen their Lord. Personal contact with a Manifestation of God can come to only a few. But many lives have been lifted into the heroic through belief in a Manifestation of God and His Message or Revelation; and there are many others whose characters have been strengthened and beautified through such a belief.
But these two ways of gaining faith in God and the power that goes with it are not the only ones. Many who perhaps would fail to recognize a Manifestation of God if they should meet him and who do not respond when they hear His Message, yet become gradually, through reading His writings, convinced of His truth and thus receive a new power in their lives. For the words of a Manifestation of God have an especial power. This is why they are sometimes called the Creative Word.
This does not mean, of course, that a casual reading of the words of Bahá’u’lláh will make a person over. But it does mean that the sincere seeker, who approaches these words with open mind and heart, who ponders them and reads them with what has been called “peeled eyes,” will sooner or later receive some effects from this creative power of the Word of God as brought by His Manifestation, and will become a changed person.
Here is that something which psychiatry
does not pretend to deal
[Page 70]
with. This power which flows from
God through His Manifestation is
creative and not, like psychiatry,
mostly analytical.
When I was in Haifa in 1920 and had the great privilege of meeting ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Exemplar and Interpreter of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, He spoke to us one day about the two natures in man. Man has animal tendencies, he said, but the Divine power in him is also great. Man must strive to have the spiritual side of his nature overcome the animal tendencies, to become nearer the Divine and follow the Divine Teachings. Then he will be radiant, like a lighted candle. But if he gives way to natural passion he becomes like an animal.
This talk of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s expresses the Bahá’í way of attaining peace of mind. The Bahá’í Teachings admit that struggle is necessary for overcoming bad and weak emotions, but the struggle will not be hopeless and will not result in soul-sickness.
The Bahá’í way of dealing with our weaknesses seems to be to acknowledge them and to seek Divine help through the Creative Word and through prayer; never to be discouraged, though we fail many times, for if we repent sincerely, God’s forgiveness is ever awaiting us, and forgiveness includes Divine help to keep up the struggle against our lower nature.
Perhaps the most powerful recommendation for psychoanalysis is that it does help some souls to gain a degree of mental and spiritual health. But is it not true that the real thoroughgoing fundamental remedy for most modern soul-sickness is a great Divine flow of power which will keep souls from becoming sick? This is what the Bahá’í Faith offers.
- ↑ Peace of Mind, by Joshua Loth Liebman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946.
VISION
ALICE JOSEPHINE WYATT
- There are creatures who walk through darkness
- With steps sure-footed and strong,
- There are others who need the starlight
- To guide them safely along.
- Many must have the sunshine
- Bright on their earthly way,
- But a few there are who are heedless
- Of both the night-light and day:
- They walk in the radiant God-light,
- Unerring, serene, and tall,
- And those with this brighter vision
- Are the leaders over all.
WITH OUR READERS
IT wasn't until we read the jacket
of his latest book, Symbols of
America, that we discovered that
Stanwood Cobb, author of this
month’s leading article, was born in
Newton, Massachusetts, was valedictorian
of the class of 1903 at Dartmouth,
and had studied philosophy
and comparative religions at the
Harvard Divinity School before he
went to Robert College in Constantinople
to teach. A dozen articles
have appeared in World Order from
Stanwood Cobb in these last ten
years. He has been an editor of the
magazine and has written the excellent
book introducing the Bahá’í
Faith, Security for a Failing World.
His other works include The Real
Turk, Character, Discovering the
Genius within You, New Horizons
for the Child, and the editing of the
verses of his Chinese friend, Wu
Ming Fu. For many years he has
been principal of Chevy Chase
School near Washington, D. C., and
active in the Progressive School
Association.
The author of “The Motive Power”, Gladys Kline, is a social service worker living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her thoughtful and well-expressed “Meditations” was printed in the May, 1946, magazine.
Mrs. Mabel Hyde Paine, one of the editors, gives us the book review of Joshua Liebman’s Peace of Mind.
Our Cincinnati, Ohio, friend, Mrs. Gertrude Schurgast, has written “Freedom from Fear”. Mrs. Schurgast, who came to this country from Germany shortly after the first World War, was an agnostic before she heard of the Bahá’í Faith. She has been active on the committee for Service to the Blind and has contributed to World Order several times, most recently, in June of 1947, with “For the Advancement of Her Race”.
The editorial this month was written by Mrs. Eleanor Hutchens. The poem, “Vision”, is by Alice Josephine Wyatt, a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, living in Los Angeles.
* * *
This month we print an ode by the great Persian poet, Háfiz. Bahá’u’lláh often quoted from the poet who has become a part of Persian culture. Born in Shíráz in about 1300 A.D., Shams-ud-din Muḥammad devoted himself to the study of poetry and theology, becoming a “professor of Koranic exegesis” in a college founded especially for him by the vizier. He took the name Háfiz, which means “one who remembers.” He was a mystic who saw God reflected in all things and who wrote lyric poetry of unsurpassed joyousness.
* * *
Maye Harvey Gift, author of “Glimpsing Oneness,” is a Bahá’í of long standing. Her “Security that Endures” appeared in December.
UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY
The Department of Public Information, United Nations, Lake Success, New York, is requesting articles up to 1200 words on the role of the individual in the United Nations. Contributors must be between the ages of 20 and 30 years. Only those persons may submit essays who belong to an accredited organization. Since the American Bahá’í Community is accredited, this offers an unusual opportunity to its young members. Any member of one of the eight Bahá’í Communities having a National Spiritual Assembly is qualified. It would be advisable for the individual participant to have his essay approved by his local Assembly or by the National Reviewing Committee. The final date for the submission of manuscripts is June 26th. We have no further details of the contest, but assume that manuscripts should be typed, double space, and accompanied by a covering letter stating that the contributor is a member of the “accredited Bahá’í non-governmental international organization.”
Those of you who have been interested
in the newspaper accounts
of the Oklahoma dispute over the admittance
of a Negro woman to the
state university to study law may be
interested in a bulletin issued by
the University of Minnesota Law Review
called “The Negro in the Supreme
Court” by Edward Waite,
which analyses Supreme Court decisions
as they affect the Negro up until
1946. Bahá’ís have been reminded
repeatedly that the greatest social
problem that confronts America is
that of race prejudice.
* * *
On the envelope of the letter sent by a Bahá’í in Peru were these words printed in the upper left hand corner: “EL MUNDO ES UN SOL PAIS Y LA HUMANIDAD SUS CIUDADANOS—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH”. It was somehow especially thrilling to see the Spanish of our familiar, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”
Yea, there exists a sign in the being of man which guards and protects him from that which is unworthy and unbecoming. That sign is called modesty. But this virtue is assigned to a few; for all are not endowed with that station.
Bahá’í Sacred Writings
Works of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Distributed by Bahá’í Publishing Committee
110 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois
A TRAVELER’S NARRATIVE
The late Prof. Edward G. Browne received this work in manuscript from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at ‘Akká while investigating the developments in the Faith since the Martyrdom of the Báb. Its authorship was not known by Prof. Browne. Translated and edited by him, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explanation of the meaning of the Báb’s Revelation and the Declaration of Bahá’u’lláh was first published by Cambridge University but the rights have been acquired by the Publishing Committee. This text was written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at some date prior to 1892.
SOME ANSWERED QUESTIONS
This text is based on ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s oral replies to questions addressed to Him by Laura Clifford Barney at Haifa in 1907. Her notes were later approved by Him. The work is divided into sections, dealing with the Prophets, the nature of man, interpretation of prophecy and religious symbol, and some social questions.
THE PROMULGATION OF UNIVERSAL PEACE
Prepared from stenographic records of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s public addresses in the United States and Canada from April to December, 1912, and His intimate talks delivered to Bahá’í groups during that period. Here is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá confronting the West on the eve of the collapse of its civil, cultural and religious civilization signalized by the outbreak of the first World War, warning the leaders and masses of their peril, summoning them to heed the Advent of the Promised One of all nations, and establishing in America the principles and ideals which have since become the program of the liberal and progressive spirit. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at the same time clearly explained the nature of the new spiritual community which alone can apply this program to society and produce a new world order.
TABLETS OF ‘ABDU’L-BAHA
For many years ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His outer life restricted by the conditions of exile and imprisonment inflicted upon Him by the Turkish church-state under Islám, shared His spirit and His beneficient wisdom with Bahá’ís of many countries who addressed communications to Him, some as individuals, others as members of Bahá’í bodies. Three volumes were compiled in America based on Tablets dated prior to 19. These pages invited one to enter an inner place, as it were, glowing with the fire of a love sustained by God. (Some other Tablets are found in Chapters VIII and IX of Bahá’í World Faith.)
TRUTHS FOR A NEW DAY
promulgated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Throughout North America in 1912
These teachings were given by Bahá’u’lláh
over seventy years ago and are to be
found in His published
writings of that time.
The oneness of mankind.
Independent investigation of truth.
The foundation of all religions is one.
Religion must be the cause of unity.
Religion must be in accord with science and reason.
Equality between men and women.
Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten.
Universal peace.
Universal education.
Spiritual solution of the economic problem.
A universal language.
An international tribunal.