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WORLD ORDER
JANUARY 1938
THE SWIFTEST CENTURY • • • • GARRETA BUSEY
PHILOSOPHY AND REVELATION • • • G. A. SHOOK
DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE • • • • ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ
THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS • • • • EMERIC SALA
THE CALL OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH • • ALICE SIMMONS COX
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VIEWING THE WORLD AS AN ORGANISM
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
JANUARY 1938 VOLUME 3 • NUMBER 10
THE ARC OF ASCENT • EDITORIAL ............................................ 361
THE SWIFTEST CENTURY • GARRETA BUSEY ................................ 363
PHILOSOPHY AND REVELATION, I • G. A. SHOOK ...................... 372
DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE • ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ ..................................... 379
THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS • EMERIC SALA ........................................ 381
PART AND COUNTERPART, II • DALE S. COLE ................................... 386
‘ALI • MARZIEH NABIL CARPENTER ........................................... 389
THE NEW CREATION, VII • ALICE SIMMONS COX ................. 391
SIGNS OF THE TIMES • BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK ................ 399
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WORLD ORDER is published monthly in New York, N. Y., by Ihe Publishing Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. EDITORS: Stanwood Cobb, Marjory Morten and Horace Holley. BUSINESS MANAGER: C. R. Wood. PUBLICATION OFFICE: 135 East 50th Street, New York, N. Y. EDITORIAL OFFICE: 119 Waverly Place, New York, N. Y.
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January 1938, Volume 3, Number 10.
WORLD ORDER
JANUARY, 1938, VOLUME THREE, NUMBER TEN
THE ARC OF ASCENT
EDITORIAL
DOWN through all known time the reflective intelligence has attempted to seize upon the mysterious movement of the universe and of historic time. Poe conceived of a periodicity expressed in a flowing together of all things, followed by their scattering and separation—an inbreathing and an outbreathing of the cosmos doubtless suggested by his reading of Oriental philosophy. Man cannot exist without understanding and without conscious aim. He has accordingly lived in a succession of mental houses, each constructed from the ruins of the last.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá expressed the shape and movement of human destiny in the pregnant phrase, we have reached the end of the arc of descent and have begun on the arc of ascent. The race has, if the phrase be interpreted correctly, arrived at the point farthest from God and commenced its journey back to Him.
Volumes of spiritual philosophy, of ethics and of sociology might be written in effort to exhaust the possibilities of that statement. It reverberates abidingly in the memory, stimulating the profoundest conscious powers.
One grows aware of the possibility
of a mighty drama played in the seen
and unseen worlds, its visible incidents
partly revealing the gradual development
in man of a free will, its
abuse and its agonized purification.
We may play with the conception that
on the arc of descent it became necessary
[Page 362]
for the race to become individualized
—the psychological equivalent
of the scattering or outbreathing Poe
discerned in the physical universe. He
who had been but part of a They—
an unconscious function of the group
—attaining self-consciousness, feels
complete separation from his fellows,
and in that inner isolation feels antagonism
and fear which he must
needs project into that artificial community,
the modern state.
On the downward arc he first recalled, then forgot, the Golden Age of his first innocence, his childhood of complete assimilation into the group and his irresponsibility for a distinct, personal destiny. In spiritual separation he forged new powers through strife with other men. Defending a personal property, he learned how to defend a partly-formed individuality from re-immersion in the ocean of obliteration. Man divided, not merely into races and nations, but more significantly into saint, philosopher, administrator, scientist, artist, worker. His reality broke into a patternless maze. He knew himself, he came to know other self, only by indirection, and he above all feared the meaning of the Whole.
Now that thrust of experience, we learn, has spent its force. Now we begin to mount an arc of ascent, responding to a new impulse that carries us into new worlds of experience.
The Whole is still unseen, unrealized, but a pattern emerges into which the broken fragments of thought and feeling can be gradually fitted. The individual remains, but his will grows aware of a passionate need for true community. For ages adapted to struggle and war, he blindly uses these acquired characteristics to establish peace. New goals, fleeing old aptitudes, warn him that different virtues and powers must be acquired. Attempting to flee from a self that knows not how to live, he plunges into this and that organized thought and feeling, seeking a substitute for inner transmutation.
He himself created these wars, these revolutions, which have been nothing else than an overwhelming loneliness of spirit become desperate to grasp and hold some portion of a universe which eluded his power to understand or to control. On the threshold of a new cycle of human powers he stands today, vainly endeavoring to continue that ancient arc of descent but realizing dimly that unity is greater than struggle, and peace is the end of war.
There is a height of human experience where the instinct for combat sinks back into the inner spirit and finds rest. That height is our human future, if we take the mysterious step of conscious faith.
THE SWIFTEST CENTURY
GARRETA BUSEY
In the holy books it is recorded that when the Sun of Truth dawns it will appear in the east and its light will be reflected in the west.—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
THE nineteenth was the swiftest of all centuries. Never before has the life of man been changed so rapidly. We have only to compare a few of the conditions under which men lived in 1800 with those of our own day to see how dizzy has been the transformation. Food, clothing, light, heat, shelter, transportation, the treatment of disease—none of these is the same. Bacteria were unheard of in 1800. Today they are part of the breakfast conversation. A sick man then was bled or cupped or operated on without disinfectant or anaesthetic. The things he used daily were all made by hand. Today they come from the factory sterilized and wrapped in cellophane. Handwork is a curiosity, sought for by museums. In 1800, if a man wished to consult with a friend a hundred miles away, the journey was arduous, a matter of days. To send word across the Atlantic, he wrote with a quill pen (if indeed he could write), despatched his letter by coach and sailing vessel, waited half a year for the answer. In 1900 he could cable. Now the spoken word can be heard in the antipodes. The story is threadbare, and although the old folks still marvel at it, sitting snugly between radio and radiator, the young men and women, in speed-cars and airplanes, take the new world for granted. But why has progress become streamlined? What is the power behind such speed? Where are we going so precipitously? What is the meaning of the swiftest of all centuries?
Not only has humanity completely altered the conditions of daily life in a century and a half, it has brought into closer contact all its varied and far-flung civilizations, it has begun to rid itself of old superstitions and to search as never before for truth wherever it may be found, and it has made a tremendous effort to lift the submerged mass of itself out of slavery into self-government.
These movements had begun in the eighteenth century, in the seventeenth, even in antiquity, but in the nineteenth century they were combined, accelerated, and enlarged, in a great access of life, which found expression in a burst of poetry as well as in science and democracy.
[Page 364]
THE search for truth is old.
It reached a high point in Greek science
and philosophy. It reappeared
strongly in the seventeenth century
with Galileo and Newton and the discovery
of the laws of motion, on
which much of modern science is
based. In the latter part of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of
the nineteenth, it remade our material
world and revised completely our
conception of the universe.
Industry arose after James Watt had made the steam engine practical in 1764. With the invention of the locomotive and of the steamship, commerce and communication throughout the western world began to expand. The railroad was well established in 1844; the telegraph came into use about the same time; transatlantic cables were laid in the fifties and sixties; other inventions have followed with increasing rapidity throughout the western world.
But the search for truth was not all sidetracked on the rails of industry and communication. The sciences of life grew up almost out of nowhere and constituted, says F. S. Marvin, “not only the most striking intellectual achievement of the age, but perhaps the greatest collective effort of man’s mind in the history of thought.” Lamarck’s work began to appear in 1801, showing progressive movement in living things. In the ’30’s the cell theory was worked out by a group of German scientists. Von Baer’s study of embryology led up to the climax of scientific thought of the century, “The Origin of the Species.” Darwin’s great book, published in 1859, struck like a thunderbolt into the minds and emotions of men. It threw into confusion their dearest religious beliefs and upset the foundations of their universe. Reinforced by geology, which was discovering the evolution of the earth’s crust, by archaeology, which was lengthening the history of man, by anthropology and comparative religion, it began to implant in man an historical sense, a recognition of the gradual growth of all things, which has now become an almost unconscious method of thought. The theory of evolution, modified but not disproved since 1859, has had as great an effect on the mind of man as has the rise of industry on his physical life. He thinks in terms of history, and science is his god.
Thus it is evident that the scientific
spirit is a pervasive force and its
results are broader than its specific
discoveries. With his mind intent on
the structure of the atom or even the
production of poison gas, the individual
scientist may not realize at the
moment that one of the by-products
of his work is unity, at least the unity
of measure and terminology. In the
Middle Ages Latin provided a common
medium of expression for literature
and religion. “The humanizing
intercourse which by means of a common
language broke through the barriers
of race, forms one of the most
charming features of the Middle
Ages,” Havelock Ellis wrote in 1890,
and at that time he was of the opinion
that a universal language would
be the inevitable result of the scientific
spirit. After almost fifty years that
result has not yet been achieved but
science, strengthened by religion, will
[Page 365]
certainly bring it about in the future.
WHEN Darwin announced the discovery of evolution in the natural world, the idea of progressive development was not new. Condorcet had maintained the theory of the perfectibility of man in the preceding century. At that time the idea had become prevalent that man could not progress to the state for which nature had designed him until he was free from religious dogma and political despotism. The French Revolution was an attempt to achieve such freedom, one step in a movement which stirred the whole of the western world.
In France the growth of democracy was marked by violent advances followed by strong reactions; in England its progress has been more orderly and progressive; while the United States, having set herself free from the despotism of the British ruling classes, continued in the steady and more or less peaceful advance of democracy up to the Civil War.
Three periods during the century are important in the history of the growth of democracy: the early ’30’s; 1848, “the Revolutionary Year;” and the middle ’60’s, when the United States set free and enfranchised her slaves. In 1830 barricades went up in the streets of Paris and once more the people threw off their government in the assertion of their right to rule themselves. The result was a constitutional monarchy, which put into practice the principles of the Revolution. Municipalities were reformed and recreated, criminal law was softened, primary schools were established in each commune, and the labor of children up to 12 years of age was prohibited. This action on the part of the French people led to constitutions being granted in several German states and hastened, no doubt, the progress of reform across the channel. England had been suffering under a corrupt and inadequate parliamentary system, which she corrected in the famous Reform Bill of 1832. Under the new parliament, with purely political means, she proceeded to remedy many of the social abuses which had grown up with the industrial revolution.
The second date, 1848, was remarkable throughout Europe. It saw the proletarian revolution in France, with the establishment of the Second Republic. The mass of mankind was surging up out of obscurity into the arena of government. In that year the Chartist Movement in England culminated in a procession bearing to Parliament a giant petition. There were risings in Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, and Italy, and a national parliament for all Germany assembled at Frankfort in an attempt to bring about self-government and national unity.
BUT democracy had reached
its high water mark for the time and
was doomed to recede. The Chartist
procession was broken up. The Second
Republic ended in a monarchy.
Revolutionary movements all over
Europe were suppressed. Germany
was united, not under a liberal government
but under the militaristic
régime of Bismarck, and prophets like
Carlyle, once champions of the common
[Page 366]
people, began to denounce democracy
in favor of government by
the wisest, without much specific advice
for determining who these were
to be. Nevertheless, England enlarged
her franchise twice before the
end of the century, and various states
in the American Union were gradually
extending the vote, though nowhere
was it yet given to women.
If Carlyle was not to be proved right in his defection from the cause of democracy, the fears of Matthew Arnold were not to be justified that culture would be lost in the rise of the masses. If the common man, having achieved freedom hardly, was not to throw it away in ignorance, education must keep pace with the extension of power. Enfranchisement may not mean freedom, wrote Havelock Ellis near the end of the nineteenth century, “since the enfranchised are capable of running in a brainless and compact mob after any man who is clever enough to gain despotic influence over them,” an assertion which the twentieth century has borne out appallingly. “If democracy,” he continues, “means a state in which every man shall be a freeman, neither in economic nor in intellectual nor moral subjection, two processes at least are needed to render democracy possible—on the one hand a large and many-sided education; on the other the reasonable organization of life.”
In the extension of education we have made much progress; of the reasonable organization of life many wise men have had visions, few of which were wide enough to comprehend the world.
EDUCATION of the masses, along with political democracy, was envisioned in the eighteenth century. In France on the eve of the Terror, the Convention planned a general system of primary education. Napoleon in his time established a centrally governed system in the communes. But these plans were never fully realized and it was not until the new spirit began to gather full power, after 1830, that elementary education, like the franchise, was extended to ever greater masses of people in Europe and America. Thus not only was the bulk of humanity being lifted into political freedom and self-government, it was given as well the free use of its intellect. Education was a means to the development of one side of the individual to his highest capacity; it helped in the spread of the new scientific spirit and began to unify culture throughout the world.
In this good, unlike the franchise, women also participated. In England and the United States elementary education for boys and girls was almost identical from the beginning, but higher learning for women was more difficult to achieve. Oberlin College opened its doors to women in 1833, but by 1872 a young woman ready for college found her choice limited to a few universities in the middle west and to Vassar College, then newly founded. Mt. Holyoke was still a female seminary. Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, and the other women’s colleges had not yet come into existence.
BUT what of the “reasonable
organization of life,” which has
[Page 367]
yet to be accomplished? This must
include as one of its primary considerations
a solution of the economic
problems raised by the industrialization
of the world. For freedom, combined
with industry, had spelled poverty
to the majority of men. Wealth
had fallen into the hands of a few,
and equality of opportunity had disappeared.
“Freedom,” observes F. S.
Marvin, “to be a real good in this
sphere, implied the mutual dealings
of equals, and equality was impossible
between one man who possessed
all the instruments by the use of which
a livelihood could be gained and another
who had to use them in order
to live.”
As early as the eighteenth century some provision had been made in England to protect working women and children, but the situation was aggravated by the corn laws, which kept up the price of grain in the interests of the landlords and by the numbers of soldiers returned from the wars and as yet unabsorbed in the economic life of the country. In 1833 a fifth of the 200,000 persons working in the cotton mills of England were under fourteen years of age, and wages were such that Carlyle proposed arsenic as a shorter way to kill the poor. “Rats,” he said, “and paupers can be abolished.” A similar condition prevailed throughout Europe and to some extent in America, where it was modified, however, by free land to be had by anyone who wished to develop it and by enormous natural resources of all kinds.
Various types of mind were brought to bear on these problems and the theories which they evolved exist in conflict even today. A laissez-faire attitude was held by conservatives, who believed that nothing should interfere with the right of free contract between individuals: competition, modified by charity, would solve it all. This system, in its pure form, was modified very early in England, as we have seen, by parliamentary acts to protect women and children.
More control of affairs was introduced into the system of the French philosopher, St. Simon, that control being in the hands of capitalists, who assumed responsibility for the welfare of society. Military chiefs of the medieval system were to be replaced by industrial chiefs (“captains of industry” indeed!) and the Catholic Church was to be replaced by science.
Nothing is more illustrative of the hold which science had achieved on the minds of that period than these various plans for the reconstruction of society. Auguste Comte, at first a disciple of St. Simon, based the whole of his Positivist philosophy on a classification of the sciences. The social and political system which he evolved provided for a “spiritual” power, consisting of a group of philosophers, to act as an advisory body and a check on the temporal power, which was to be made up of capitalists chosen according to “the degree of generality of their conceptions and operations.” Perhaps the plan failed because so few industrialists could be found who possessed a sufficient degree of generality in their operations.
Robert Owen might have been one
of Comte’s industrialists, for already
at the beginning of the century he had
been operating at New Lanark a successful
[Page 368]
cotton mill from which children
under ten were excluded. It provided
good schools for the children
of its workers, run on Pestalozzian
principles, gymnastics for the boys,
household training for girls, comfortable
homes, a cooperative shop, and
pensions for old age. Owen did everything
in his power to convince other
factory owners of the value of this
system, but he failed, and in 1825, the
year of St. Simon’s death, he bought
the Rappite Colony at New Harmony,
Indiana, to attempt there an experiment
in communal life.
Owen’s community, which lasted only a short time, was only one of many such experiments being tried out in America. Brook Farm in New England, Ceresco at Ripon, Wisconsin, and Noyes community at Oneida, New York, were examples and showed the need men felt for a better organization of society.
DURING the middle years of the century the most influential school of thought in England was that of the Utilitarians, with John Stuart Mill at its head. A descendant of the old Philosophical Radicals, Mill had been imbued with the growing scientific spirit. He had felt the influence of Comte and was also acquainted with socialism. He recognized that the removal of inequalities between employers and workers was desirable, but he wished this to come about without interference from the state, except as the state should educate the people for individual accomplishment.
Socialism, on the other hand, regarded the state as all-important. The proletarian revolution in France in 1848 took a step in that direction, for the government established National Workshops in Paris at that time of unemployment and guaranteed every registered workman a franc a day, if he wished to work. 100,000 men collected in the city; there was little for them to do; and the experiment ended in violence and eventually in reaction. Karl Marx, who was living in Paris while this was going on, returned to Germany after the revolution to set up a socialist democratic paper, and later, in London, he began organizing the International Association of Working Men. Marx employed the idea of evolution in the elaboration of his theory. Socialism was to be the last stage in the evolution of society, following capitalism, a necessary phase which must, however, be brought to an end.
Thus we can see the changing position
of the state in relation to human
affairs during the last one hundred
and fifty years. Action has not kept
up with theory, but its trend is in the
same direction. Prevailing radical
thought at the end of the eighteenth
century insisted on individual liberty
in rebellion against autocratic government;
in the middle of the nineteenth
century it countenanced government
aid in the solution of social
problems only for education towards
individual endeavor; at the end of the
century radicals looked to the state
for the control of all economic relationships.
This change is the result of
science and democracy. Science
brought about the invention of machinery
on such a large scale that government
help was necessary for its establishment
[Page 369]
(the railroad is a case in
point) and for the protection of the
public against it. We have been
bound together too closely by science
to be any longer safely individualistic.
Meanwhile increasing political democracy
gave men confidence in governments.
The state, they believed,
had become the extension of their own
wills. But what was to cleanse their
wills, thus extended, from selfishness
and corruption, and what was
to keep peace between conflicting
states?
FOR nationalism was in the ascendant. In the early decades of the century it had been linked with liberty and the freeing of small nations from oppression. The freedom of Greece was clear to British idealists, and liberal thought in the United States supported Bolivar in his fight for the independence of the South American republics. In Europe by the middle of the century only Germany and Italy lacked national unity. Of Germany Bismarck, as we have seen, forged a strong militarized state during the sixties, and when Italy became a nation in 1870 nationalism had achieved its end. It had liberated the peoples from the despotic oppression of alien rule and had enabled the groups to develop spontaneously within themselves. Now, however, it became a menace, for the peace of Europe hung on a balance of power between wary nations, armed with ever more destructive means of warfare. That peace failed in 1871, when Bismarck precipitated the Franco-Prussian war. National feeling became more intense. Armaments piled up. 1914 came, and after the war men wondered what could keep humanity from annihilation. Our intellects, they said, have run away with us. We have invented our own destruction.
But the new outpouring of life had not been intellectual alone. There was a quickening of the heart in the eighteenth century, called somewhat derisively sensibility, or sentimentalism. Reacting against the doctrine of original sin, it emphasized the innate goodness of every human soul. Even animals were shown a tenderness the classic exaggeration of which is to be found in Tristram Shandy’s Uncle Toby. “Go,” said Uncle Toby, putting a troublesome fly out the window. “I’ll not hurt a hair of thy head. . . .go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.” This, before the day of screens, was magnanimous indeed! But more practical applications of such kindness were not very many, although beginnings had been made in that direction. There was a movement for the reform of prisons and of penal legislation. The slave trade was checked, and as a protest against the coldness of religious institutions, a wave of Wesleyan fervor had begun to spread over the English-speaking world.
In the nineteenth century, however,
humanitarian movements gathered
speed, using the newly extended democracy
as their means of advancement.
The Reform Parliament in England
enacted much humanitarian legislation,
a part of which was for the
protection of the working classes and
the abolition of slavery in the colonies.
In America the issue of slavery was
[Page 370]
fought out in the sixties. There its
last great stronghold succumbed.
With these reforms there went a
renewed insistence on the conception
of humanity as a Whole. Mazzini proclaimed
as the gospel of the coming
day “Moral unity and Fraternity in a
Faith common to all Humanity.”
Marx’s system was an international
one. And Auguste Comte went so
far as to try to institute the worship
of Mankind instead of God.
FOR science had destroyed orthodox theology. The body of materialistic thought which had been growing up since the renaissance had become so strong in the eighteenth century that the French Revolution had rejected religion entirely in favor of reason. In 1859 “The Origin of the Species,” supported by geological and archaeological discoveries, struck the final blow at a literal belief in the Bible. The idea of the evolution of religion, which had existed in Europe since the Crusaders had brought it home from Islam, now weakened rather than strengthened belief in the revelation of truth from a supernatural source.
The sufferings caused by the overthrow of traditional faith were poignant. The most tough-minded accepted it with a kind of stoicism; a few turned to Comte’s Positivist Religion of Humanity, substituting an idealized conception of mankind for an extinct God; but to many that was a distasteful makeshift. “I have asked for bread,” wrote John Addington Symonds, after talking with a Positivist, “and he has given me a stone. Why not deny me bread and say, ‘I have none, science has petrified my store’?” “I want faith,” he said in another place. “‘Je suis venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux.’ I have been born too late in a world too old.”
These then are the forces which had been gathering such momentum in Europe and America during the nineteenth century: the scientific spitit, which demanded inquiry into all traditions and beliefs, on the one hand, and brought into being the industrial age, on the other; democracy, and with democracy some of the reforms made necessary by industrialism; the advancement of women, freed by the machine from service in the home and brought into competition with men in the factories, attaining, more slowly than men but surely, the rights to legal equality, equal education, and participation in all fields of endeavor; a chaotic mélange of economic theory and practice; and, in religion, either the downfall of the old faith or its dilution to the point of impotence with materialism.
MEANWHILE western customs
and ideas were being carried around
the world with amazing speed by
means of commerce, colonization, and
the vastly accelerated means of communication.
“What impresses one,”
wrote Havelock Ellis in 1890, “is the
vast resonance which now accompanies
human achievement, because
of the communalization and extension
of the methods of intercourse.”
The American continent was almost
completely Europeanized during the
century. Africa was opened up.
Japan attained over-night a western
[Page 371]
industrial civilization. An English
culture was superimposed on that of
India. And the age-old isolation of
China was broken down. It looked
as if the peoples of the world were
on the way to being united physically
if not emotionally.
Persia was almost the last nation into which this wave of westernization was to penetrate. Industry, democracy, education (except for the clergy) did not exist. Women had no privileges. There was no scientific search for truth and therefore no scepticism, but religion was narrow, fanatical, and corrupt. The government was an autocracy dominated by priests and nobles among whom bribery was the accepted method of procedure.
In that darkness the new day dawned. Its Light, perceptible in the western world in scientific discovery and the struggle for political justice, was brought to a sharp focus in Persia, where it afforded a brilliant contrast to the surrounding darkness. There it could be seen in its pure form, the power of Spirit, the Glory of God.
It is man’s spiritual duty, Bahá’u’lláh said, to investigate truth wherever he may find it, whether it be in science or in another religious system than that of his fathers, for science and religion are fundamentally in harmony, and all religion is one. Humanity is one family: there must be no prejudice between nations and between races. The nations shall establish peace. They shall federate and become as one nation, with a House of Justice representative of them all and elected on the basis of universal suffrage. A world tribunal shall be established and a universal auxiliary language adopted. Education shall be compulsory, for girls as well as boys. The sexes shall be given equal opportunities. “Work, in the spirit of service, is worship,” and there will be work for all when the economic systems of the world are one. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty will disappear under a system suggested but not worked out in detail, which strikes a balance between individual enterprise and community control, but the economic problem is a spiritual problem and its solution is dependent on spiritual attainment. Bahá’u’lláh foreshadowed a system of administration which will bring democratic government into harmony with the great spiritual forces newly released in the world, for only in the recognition of one God and obedience to His commands can man find power to bring about peace on earth and the highest development of the individual.
The second article in a symposium on the subject of The World Outlook.
PHILOSOPHY AND REVELATION
G. A. SHOOK
I. OUR PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND
ONE of the most perplexing questions that arises in the advent of a new religion is this: why is revelation ignored by philosophy when the declared aim of philosophy is the quest of ultimate reality, absolute certainty, and the highest good? In the western world the obvious answer seems to be that revealed religion is concerned with problems of faith and belief and these do not fall within the field of intellectual activity. The mere fact that the practical results of philosophy are insignificant compared with those of religion need not disturb philosophy so long as it maintains that the highest satisfaction must come through the intellect or mind alone. We are so familiar with this traditional view of philosophy that we do not take the trouble to question its validity, rather we accept the dilemma as one of the irreconcilables. But philosophy is itself also concerned with comprehensives and it has made repeated attempts to solve the dilemma while retaining the classical tradition. So far it has failed but the influence of the tradition still prevails.
Our problem then is to examine the classical philosophy. We cannot overlook certain clear-cut issues. Have the philosophers failed in their quest for universal truth? Is the system of logic upon which our western civilization seems to rest so neatly inadequate for evaluating revelation? Or is there an inherent, unfathomable mystery behind all revelation which eludes the human mind? From the standpoint of revelation our first thought is, that although the adherents of a revealed religion may not reason about their faith, philosophers should be able to discern the underlying reality. The difficulty may be with the viewpoint of the Greeks, which philosophers have inherited.
Perhaps the first intimation that all
was not well with Aristotelian philosophy
was the consequences of the
famous experiment of Galileo, when
he demonstrated to skeptical observers
that a light iron ball and a heavy
one would fall to the ground in the
same time contrary to the explicit
statement of Aristotle that the heavier
ball would reach the ground first.
From our modern scientific position
we naturally ask, why didn’t Aristotle
try the experiment himself or why
didn’t some of his more curious followers
try it in the sixteen centuries
[Page 373]
that elapsed between Aristotle and
Galileo. But that was not a pertinent
question either with Aristotle or his
followers. From the standpoint of
classical philosophy, something might
have happened to the experiment; the
world of matter is a world of accident
—nothing is certain. The world of
the mind is free from such limitations
and therefore its deductions are infallible.
History tells us that some who
witnessed this demonstration did not
believe their own eyes—so irnpregnable
was the authority of Aristotle.
Herein lies the weak point of the classical tradition of philosophy. Like the classical physics of the nineteenth century, it underestimated its limitations.
THE Greek thinkers distinguish between knowledge that comes to us by reasoning about ideas, and the kind we obtain by experience. The latter is inferior since there is always some probability of error. Truth obtained from observation and experiment, and this kind must include the exact sciences, can never be universal. The function of knowledge is to discover what is “real” in the sense of being unchangeable, immutable. This kind of truth is pre-existent, antecedent. The world of practical affairs is a world of change and therefore an unreal world, unworthy of the attention of the thinker. This doctrine necessarily leads to some theory of escape. For his highest development man should not try to solve existing problems nor to better his material condition. Action and doing belong to a lower realm than thinking, theory is elevated above and separated from practice. There are several reasons why man adopted this attitude.
1. The most obvious reason for this ancient notion, which unfortunately still persists, is that labor has always been associated with material things and labor was universally considered distasteful, if not undignified. In time men with special talents for philosophy and the requisite leisure naturally created a division between theory and practice, extolling the former and depreciating the latter. As man invented means for reducing labor (at least for the minority), the notion that it was a curse gradually disappeared. With the rise of modern science the old distinction between deductive thinking and inductive thinking disappeared almost entirely. Not entirely, for philosophy still held that intellectual activity was associated in some way with a higher realm that is independent of the physical world and practical affairs.
2. Now the reason why philosophy
placed intellectual activity (independent
of observation and experiment)
above all other activity, even
including the mental that involves the
material world, is more fundamental
than we have indicated. True, work
was a curse but for the intelligentsia
at least it need not be considered so
today. Certainly it will not account
for the traditional viewpoint. Pure
mental activity unaffected by the material
world, seems superior to all
other activity because the world of
matter is a world of change, unpredictable
and therefore a world of uncertainty.
Why should we try to control
events or change their course
when we cannot anticipate the outcome?
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The best of plans may fail.
Rational mental activity, on the other
hand, according to the philosophical
tradition, is free from this uncertainty.
External acts are not necessary to varify
its conclusions—it is a closed system
sufficient unto itself. In the
hands of philosophers this notion became
a fundamental doctrine. Therefore,
down through the ages the desire
for certainty has led men to this
division of mental activity and all
practical arts. In time man did learn
more control over events but the old
notion persisted because it touched
man’s emotional nature. Man’s desire
for security also reacted in quite
another way. To those who had
neither the intellectual equipment nor
the leisure for reasoning about absolute
truth there was still a way to secure
some measure of protection—by
appealing to those unseen forces
which seemed to frustrate him at every
turn. The irrational could appeal
to the Gods through rites and ceremonies.
3. In view of the fact that most philosophical doctrines were developed by men who had leisure, usually a product of mental activity rather than manual labor, it is only natural that the pursuit of knowledge would be valued for this practical end although the end might be excluded in any argument concerning the elevation of the mind above all practical affairs. Such incongruities are not unusual in a world in which social injustice is assumed. To quote Dewey, “Such considerations point to the conclusion that the ultimate ground of the quest for cognitive certainty is the need for security in the results of action. Men readily persuade themselves that they are devoted to intellectual certainty for its own sake. Actually they want it because of its bearing on safeguarding what they desire and esteem. The need for protection and prosperity in action created the need for warranting the validity of intellectual beliefs.”[1]
4. Finally we must admit that even scholars sometimes indulge in a kind of exclusiveness that is detrimental both to themselves and society. Hogben may not be exaggerating when he says, “To be proud of intellectual isolation from the common life of mankind and to be disdainful of the great social task of education is as stupid as it is wicked. It is the end of progress in knowledge. History shows that superstitions are not manufactured by the plain man. They are invented by neurotic intellectuals with too little to do.”[2]
NEVERTHELESS it was philosophy
that taught man to look to reason
and not custom as a guide to conduct.
Unfortunately, however, the
classic tradition was limited in this direction.
Dewey says, “As far as it occupied
itself at all with human conduct,
it was to superimpose upon acts
ends said to flow from the nature of
reason. It thus diverted thought from
inquiring into the purposes which experience
of actual conditions suggest
and from concrete means of their actualization.
It translated into a rational
form the doctrine of escape
from the vicissitudes of existence by
means of measures which do not demand
an active coping with conditions.
For deliverance by means of
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rites and cults, it substituted deliverance
through reason. This deliverance
was an intellectual, a theoretical
affair, constituted by a knowledge
to be attained apart from practical
activity.”[3]
One is impressed by the similarity between the doctrine of escape in philosophy and in absolute mysticism, in spite of the fact that philosophy stresses the mind while mysticism rejects the mind and relies upon feeling.
The desire for the unchangeable, the pre-existent reality, is worthy and commendable. It is the most potent factor in all religion. Even in exact science the tendency to reduce everything to universal laws is fundamental. The question is, can this ultimate reality be found through mental effort alone? Philosophers are not unanimous upon this point and scientists are convinced that theory alone would not guarantee them success.
The classic tradition assumes that the highest satisfaction comes from the kind of knowledge which is free from doing and acting but in a sense the validity of this doctrine depends to some extent upon experience. The intellectual satisfaction, the exultation that the rational and empirical philosopher experiences is taken as evidence, if not proof, that he has become one with the Highest Good, the Divine. His experience we cannot deny, but the interpretation of his experience is another matter. It is an inference and must be regarded as such. To be sure, to the classic philosopher no such criticism could be made but in terms of our wider knowledge today the inconsistency is obvious. Here again the classic philosopher in his assumption concerning the “real” is not unlike the mystic who interprets his ecstasy as a proof of his union with the Absolute.
This is not surprising when we recall that both radical mysticism and mystical philosophy have much of the same tradition. Both rest upon the assumption that ultimate reality is to be found by reflection and both reject revelation.
THE rise of modern science showed that the elevation of the mind above experience was unwarranted. Modern philosophy has shown also that the classic tradition cannot persist in the face of facts, but the popular mind is still influenced by this ancient doctrine.
So much for the classical philosophy —what are the results?
Indirectly through Christian theology it retarded science but directly it had very little influence upon science.
As for the effect upon philosophy itself; to begin with, no one can be entirely indifferent to the world of affairs, desires, and affections. If one had no concern whatsoever as to the outcome of his thinking, he would not make the effort to think. How is it possible for a philosopher to delight in a process of thinking which excludes delight?
The problem of modern philosophy
is almost the reverse of the ancient.
Today we ask, how can the rational
faculty assist in the practical affairs of
life? How can practical affairs give
meaning and direction to our thinking?
Science has demonstrated what
it can do in the material world by establishing
some relation between
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mental activity and experimentation,
theory and practice, knowing and doing.
It has given little heed to traditional
philosophy. It never raises the
question, is the expansion of science
desirable? Does this scientific investigation
have value? But science has
made little or no contribution to our
understanding of the real purpose of
life, ultimate values, ideals. It has
nothing to say about the so-called
higher values which are supposed to
influence or control our conduct. We
must recall here, however, that the
church rejected science and after the
separation of church and state, science
became the ally of the state. This
is one reason why scientists believe
it would be fatal to scientific investigation
to be influenced in any way by
values. This sometimes leads to incongruous
situations. To illustrate,
if a scientist is asked to invent an effective
explosive, his first thought
would be to create the most destructive
product possible. It would be
left to others to justify the ethics.
The phenomenal success of science has disturbed philosophy; for those fields of human activity which are supposed to have a broader outlook upon life have not succeeded so well in solving their own specific problems, much less the problem of practical behavior. If the arts cannot suggest any way to control desires, and they seem to be the root of all our social and economic evils, shall we turn to science or shall we combine science and the arts to work out some method for controlling behavior? These are pressing questions. It is clear that the traditional philosopher will be of little use here and it is equally clear if we reflect upon contemporary events, that civilization may disintegrate before modern philosophy has had time to work out a practical plan.
It seems incredible that any kind of thinking would lead to, or support, dogma and yet in the hands of Christian theology, Aristotelian philosophy did just that. Perhaps it is not strange when we recall that the classical philosophy assumed without demonstration that the mind was infallible.
BUT philosophy has made one advance that is significant to our central theme, revelation. Not only has philosophy realized that the human mind, operating independently of action, is incapable of obtaining ultimate reality, but also it realizes that there are inner experiences involving something besides the rational faculty which may put us in touch with higher forces. There are experiences then, in which the whole personality of man (not merely his intellect) is functioning. These are closely related to mystical experiences. While neither mysticism nor philosophy acknowledge revelation as the ultimate source of spiritual values, both are nearer the truth than traditional philosophy or secularized religion. By mysticism is meant that endeavor to find some subjective method by which the individual soul can transcend its true station and identify itself directly with God.
So much for the limited and fallible
methods of philosophy. It, philosophy,
ignores revelation and yet the
prophet may elucidate in a few sentences
a problem that has confounded
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philosophers for ages. The writings
of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are
replete with illustrations of this superhuman
power. For example, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
expounded a complete and satisfactory
theory of knowledge in just
a few pages and moreover with a clarity
never attained by any philosopher.
He says that there are four and only four criteria of knowledge; sense perception, tradition, reason, and inspiration (revelations of the heart). He then shows that all are defective. It is obvious that the senses and tradition are unreliable and from what we have said above it is clear that the mind has its limitations. “If reason is the perfect standard and criterion of knowledge, why are opinions at variance and why do philosophers disagree so completely with each other?”[4] Mystical states ostensibly yield something superior to the mind but in reality they do not yield knowledge. This point will be discussed in detail later but for the present we may assume a fact of common experience, namely that the revelations of the heart must be tested by the mind. Taken alone they cannot be trusted.
Now if we reflect a little we will see that all human knowledge must partake of the imperfections of these four criteria. We may apply them in various ways but the result is always the same—we are never absolutely sure of knowledge that is acquired by these methods. Inspiration is valuable only when it is tested by reason. The promptings of the heart are not necessarily lofty, they may be satanic. Likewise tradition must be interpreted by reason and at best it is only the record of human understanding. It is not an independent standard of knowledge. It is valuable when it is the report of the best thought of the time. The traditions of the early church are indispensable to doctrine and church order but they are not infallible and no amount of exegesis can make them infallible.
Sense perception, inspiration, and tradition must be subjected to intellectual investigation and although the intellect is God’s supreme gift to man, it is not, as we have seen, an independent reliable standard. To illustrate, without arduous thinking an idea flashes upon the mind, let us say a new social theory. We call it inspiration because it appears to be the product of meditation rather than mental activity. We test it by careful unbiased thinking and it seems sound and inviolable but as reason is not an infallible guide we are not sure. If we get the support of tradition we feel a little more secure but tradition must be interpreted by the mind and is therefore not an independent method of acquiring knowledge.
ALL human knowledge is therefore defective and unreliable. However, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reminds us that mankind has access to another kind of knowledge that is independent of these criteria, and that is the innate knowledge of the prophet or divine revelator. His knowledge is not gained from others or by study and therefore it is not limited and imperfect as is human knowledge.
Revelation imparts knowledge to
the world in two ways. It brings new
laws and ordinances and it also diffuses
spiritual and intellectual illumination.
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This is an incontravertible
historic fact. It is the guidance of the
mind and heart through revelation,
and not some inner urge, that restores
the fortunes of humanity.
The knowledge that comes through revelation does not have to be tested by these four criteria. The validity of the great truths uttered by Christ and Muhammad is independent of human standards of acquiring knowledge.
This is, as I understand it, the Bahá’í epistemology. The real source of knowledge is revelation. The divine prophets are the universal educators of the human race and were it not for revelation, humanity would revert to savagery.
“To whatever heights the mind of the most exalted of men may soar, however great the depths which the detached and understanding heart can penetrate, such mind and heart can never transcend that which is the creature of their own conceptions and the product of their own thoughts. The meditations of the profoundest thinker, the devotions of the holiest of saints, the highest expressions of praise from either human pen or tongue, are but a reflection of that which hath been created within themselves, through the revelation of the Lord, their God.”[5]
THE most important of all matters in question, and that with which it is most specially necessary to deal effectively, is the promotion of education. And no freedom or salvation could be imagined in the case of any nation which had not progressed in this greatest and most important point . . . as the greatest cause of degradation and decadency of every nation is bigotry and ignorance. Another characteristic of progress consists in the earnest and sincere development of public education, in the teaching of all the useful sciences and in encouraging the people to adopt modern inventions, in extending the spheres of arts and commerce, and endeavoring to induce them to adopt the methods by which the country may be enriched. If necessary, even make this education compulsory, for not until the veins and tendons of the nation stir with life will any study and adoption of improvements be of any avail, because the nation is like unto the body, zeal and resolution are like unto the soul . . . the soulless body cannot move.—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE
‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ
Question—Of what degree is the intelligence of the human world, and what are its limitations?
KNOW that intelligence varies; the lowest degree of intelligence is that of the animals, that is to say, the natural feeling which appears through the powers of the senses, and which is called sensation. In this, men and animals are sharers; moreover, some animals with regard to the senses are more powerful than man. But in humanity, intelligence differs and varies in accordance with the different conditions of man.
The first condition of intelligence in the world of nature is the intelligence of the rational soul. In this intelligence and in this power all men are sharers, whether they be neglectful or vigilant, believers or deniers. This human rational soul is God’s creation; it contains and excels other creatures; as it is more noble and distinguished, it contains things. The power of the rational soul can discover the realities of things, comprehend the peculiarities of beings, and penetrate the mysteries of existence. All sciences, knowledge, arts, wonders, institutions, discoveries, and enterprises, come from the exercised intelligence of the rational soul. There was a time when they were unknown, preserved mysteries, and hidden secrets; the rational soul gradually discovered them and brought them out from the plane of the invisible and the hidden, into the realm of the visible. This is the greatest power of intelligence in the world of nature, which in its highest flight and soaring comprehends the realities, the properties, and the effects of the contingent beings.
But the universal divine mind
which is beyond nature, is the bounty
of the Pre-existent Power. This universal
mind is divine; it embraces
existing realities, and it receives the
light of the mysteries of God. It is a
conscious power, not a power of investigation
and of research. The intellectual
power of the world of nature
is a power of investigation, and
by its researches it discovers the realities
of beings, and the properties of
existences; but the heavenly intellectual
power which is beyond nature,
embraces things and is cognizant of
things, knows them, understands
them, is aware of mysteries, realities,
and divine significations, and is the
discoverer of the concealed verities of
the Kingdom. This divine intellectual
power is the special attribute of the
Holy Manifestations and the Dawning-places
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of prophethood; a ray of
this light falls upon the mirrors of
the hearts of the righteous, and a portion
and a share of this power comes
to them through the Holy Manifestations.
THE Holy Manifestations have three conditions: one, the physical condition; one, that of the rational soul; and one, that of the manifestation of perfection and of the lordly splendor. The body comprehends things according to the degree of its ability in the physical world, therefore in certain cases it shows physical weakness. For example: “I was sleeping and unconscious, the breeze of God passed over me and awoke me, and commanded me to proclaim the Word;” or when Christ in His thirtieth year was baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him; before this, the Holy Spirit did not manifest itself in Him. All these things refer to the bodily condition of the Manifestations; but their heavenly condition embraces all things, knows all mysteries, discovers all signs, and rules over all things; before as well as after their mission, it is the same. That is why Christ has said: “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last:” that is to say, there has never been and never shall be any change and alteration in me.
THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS
EMERIC SALA
CERTAIN statements made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, correlated with events of the last decades, should provide a fair basis for taking a glimpse into the immediate future. On the other hand, an appraisal of men’s economic, social and spiritual aspirations is necessary to understand the difficulties we are confronted with today.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in an address translated as “The Seven Lights of Unity,” gives definite indication as to the various steps humanity will take before World Peace and World Order can be attained.
Political unity of the human race is envisioned by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the first of these seven stages. The present international situation with its increasing race in armaments and intense nationalism, would set such a hope very remote. We know, however, the three basic ailments of our present civilization, namely, unemployment with its staggering cost, the periodic recurrence of economic crisis and, worst of all, our modern warfare, with its immeasurable horror and cost of human life. These three causes of deterioration are increasingly becoming too formidable to maintain our status quo. For neither unemployment, depressions or wars are local or national in character. They are embedded in our international set-up. Therefore, any attempt at their removal, however sincere and humanitarian, will remain ineffective, unless undertaken on an international scale. Although generally unaware, the preparation for such an uprising is already discernible in many parts of the world. Our various governments, particularly in Europe, are lining up into two hostile camps. The so-called dissatisfied countries against the so-called satisfied countries. Democracies against dictatorships. Progressives against reactionaries. Right against Left. And yet, the division is not so simple. We will find rich and poor, radical and conservative, in both camps. We will find men of the same creed and nationality in opposing lines.
The next war is as inevitable as the knife of a surgeon to one afflicted with peritonitis. The masses are just as reluctant to go to the next war as a patient is to undergo an operation. Yet both are inevitable, determined by the law of cause and effect. Not long after the last world conflagration, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Another War, fiercer than the last, will assuredly break out.”
We cannot have peace without
justice. We could have avoided the
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next war, if, and only if, men were
willing to take cognizance of the underlying
spirit of this age, that, “That
one indeed is a man who today dedicates
himself to the service of the entire
human race.” Bahá’u’lláh thus
pronounced the standard for this
century. Our refusal to accept it
brings chaos and confusion in its
wake. The violent happenings in
Spain and elsewhere are only a prelude
to what is to come.
Nations cannot disarm. They can only arm. Nations cannot abolish tariffs. They can only raise them. Governments are not willing to surrender their national sovereignty to a league of nations. They are not willing to forego national interests or possessions, acquired by means, however questionable to the common interests of the human race. Nations and empires still want to live for themselves, and for themselves only. Must they, therefore, perish?
By fighting each other, destroying each other’s properties, burning each other’s cities, wiping out each other’s population, the survivors of the next world war, irrespective of victor or vanquished, will stand stripped of national pride, deprived of most of their resources, humiliated and destitute.
Thus will humanity, through suffering and misfortune, freed from former loyalties and material serfdom, delivered from age-old institutions and customs, liberated from the stranglehold of national pride, coordinate its remaining strength to establish the political federation of all nations.
The second step of endeavor is indicated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá under the heading: “Unity of Thought.” This period could be anticipated as follows. The newly formed federal government of all the nations of the world will as its first act institute measures for the reconstruction of a war-weary, devastated world. It will plan the rebuilding of industry and commerce on a world-wide scale. While formerly nations built and nurtured their industries to compete against other nations, now for the first time in history, people of the world will work and manufacture commodities for use on a cooperative basis. There will be only one market, accessible to all. One system of currency and measures will simplify the interchange of goods. The consciousness of world citizenship will spread as the workers realize that they are members of a world industry, supplying the needs of a world market, unrestricted by political and economic barriers. Their federal government will institute plans for an increase of the average world standard of living, and we will see men and women of every nation united in this task, anxious to contribute their share, offering their time and strength with an almost religious fervor. Humanity will thus learn, driven by political and economic necessity, although divided by cultural, racial and climatic differences, to work and to think with each other, rather than against each other.
THE third period, according to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, will have as its main contribution, “Unity of Freedom.”
We will see, at this third stage, a
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harassed humanity, having emerged
out of wars and revolutions, and having
attained political and economic
unity, concentrate all its forces toward
social reform. Laws will be legislated
guaranteeing not only political, but
also industrial, freedom. We will
regain freedom of press, speech, and
of worship in every country. The
natives of every colony will have the
right of self-determination. Industrial
exploitation (or “industrial slavery,”
as termed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá) practised
under our present system will be abolished.
In brief, the constitution of
the federated states of the world will
guarantee equal political, economic,
and social opportunity to every man
and woman, to every nation, and to
every race.
And now we come to the fourth step of man’s progress as envisaged by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “Unity of Religion.” The historic opportunity for the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh will apparently not come until this fourth period. Important political, economic and social strides will have to be made, before a world-wide recognition of the Bahá’í Faith is possible.
“For the revelation of so great a favor, a period of intense turmoil and widespread suffering would seem to be indispensable. Resplendent as has been the Age that has witnessed the inception of the Mission with which Bahá’u’lláh has been entrusted, the interval which must elapse ere that Age yields its choicest fruit must, it is becoming increasingly apparent, be overshadowed by such moral and social gloom as can alone prepare an unrepentent humanity for the prize she is destined to inherit.”[1]
Up to that time, the growth of this movement will, of necessity, be comparatively slow. The unfolding of the economic and social principles of the Faith are to follow later.
This would explain ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s emphasis on the spiritual teachings during His European and American journeys. We can find this whole attitude reflected in almost all Bahá’í writings and teachings since the turn of the century. Stress was laid on the spiritual and mystical, rather than economic and social aspects of this Faith. Religious movements were studied in preference to social movements. More interest was shown in comparative religion than in comparing various systems of government. More was known about man in his relation to God and the universe, than about man in relation to his social environment. We could feel and understand Bahá’u’lláh speaking to us as individuals, but we could not understand the World Order He wanted us to build.
IT was not easy to understand that the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh is not “religion” in the old sense of the word. It is not only worship, a belief, and a way of life. Its prerequisite is the “consciousness of the oneness of mankind.” In addition, it unfolds an administrative machinery upon which a new world civilization is to rest. It offers a new spirit but also a new body in which it can live and develop. It shows the way, not only to the “kingdom in heaven,” but also to the “kingdom on earth.”
And yet Bahá’ís are asked not to interfere
in political affairs, while the
[Page 384]
very purpose of their world-wide system
is a Divine Policy, destined to
surpass past and present social institutions.
They are not to associate
themselves with any of the movements
precipitating a relentless combat between
the interests of capital and
labor, while the Divine Economy of
Bahá’u’lláh, his followers claim,
should prove to be the final standard
of reconciliation of these contending
forces.
The foregoing strengthens the conclusion that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, when speaking of the “Seven Lights of Unity,” implied that political, economic and social unity, however imperfect, born out of the death pangs of a decaying civilization, will precede “religious unity.” And only after the physical foundation of a new civilization has been laid, will the masses of humanity be willing to listen to the words of Bahá’u’lláh.
During this period of transition men will have broken away from their former loyalties of church and state, and will have discarded their traditional customs and creeds. With the spread of secularism, religious practice and beliefs will diminish. The godlessness of men will gain momentum. Our great religious institutions will crumble together with our great political empires. What our coming wars will leave undone, succeeding revolutions will undo.
And thus man, uprooted from his past, will stand naked, eager to build a new civilization on the ruins of the old. He will have to use all his ingenuity to build a new political and economic structure. He will have to mobilize all that is left of fairness, justice and charity for the socialization of a new world community.
But this will not be enough. Man will have to formulate a new philosophy of life. He will have to find a new code of ethics. He will need a new source of inspiration. He has to re-discover the universe and his relation to it. And he will have to regain his faith, his faith in man and the universe. For the one he once had, he destroyed. Countries which now are, to all appearances, irreligious, will, at a certain stage of development, admit the need of spiritual education.
For, it should be remembered that, while former Dispensations succeeded in inspiring moral behavior amongst individuals, they were never fully translated into the sphere of social life. For instance, the reiteration, for thousands of years of the divine commandment “Do not kill” did not remain without effect. We, as individuals, would not kill another man, whatever the temptation. Not only because it is against the laws of our civilization, but because it is against the dictates of our conscience. But when put into uniforms, we are willing to kill men by the thousand, for the honor and glory of our fatherland. Then murder is not against the laws of our country, nor against our conscience.
It is at this point that the Bahá’í Faith becomes indispensable. For it influences, not only the individual, but also society. Its aim is the regeneration of man and his community. It cannot conceive one without the other, while, previously, in a primitive society, the latter was impossible.
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The world order of the future will
need a world religion. It will seek a
new orientation, a new conception of
morals, applicable, not only to the individual,
but also to society, as a
whole. It will establish its civilization
and culture on the pivot of Bahá’u’lláh’s
message: “The consciousness of
the oneness of mankind.” For what
else could keep together a society so
diversified geographically and racially?
What other moral standards
could pacify every nation, race and
class, and yet safeguard the autonomy
of each state and the personal freedom
and initiative of each individual?
What other Faith, with its worldwide
ramifications, could inculcate in
every living heart that: “We are all
the leaves of one tree, the flowers of
one garden, and the drops of one
ocean?”
- ↑ The Unfoldment of World Civilization, Shoghi Effendi.
THE time has arrived for the world of humanity to hoist the standard of the oneness of the human world, so that solidarity and unity may bind together all the nations of the world, so that dogmatic formulas and superstitions may end, so that the essential reality underlying all the religions founded by the Prophets may be revealed.
That reality is one. It is the love of God, the progress of the world, the oneness of humanity. That reality is the bond which can unite all the human race. That reality is the attainment of the Most Great Peace, the discarding of warfare. That reality is progressiveness, the undertaking of the colossal tasks in life, the oneness of public opinion.
Therefore strive, O ye people, and put forth your efforts, that this reality may overcome the lesser forces in life, that this king of reality may alone rule all humanity. Thus may the world of mankind be reformed. Thus may a new spring-time be ushered in and a fresh spirit may resuscitate mankind.
—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
PART AND COUNTERPART
Concluded
DALE S. COLE
THERE being many ways in which the physical and spiritual worlds stand in relation to each other as part and counterpart, analogies from the more familiar physical phenomena are of assistance in understanding those of the less familiar spiritual enigmas.
Science has resorted to a conception of “fields of force” to help in understanding the mysterious action of some of the forces of nature. For instance, about an ordinary magnet, or a wire carrying electrical current, there is said to be a field of force, within which certain effects occur. These fields of force are imaginatively visualized as consisting of “lines of force” acting together.
We live in numerous physical fields of force, unconscious of many of them because we are not constituted so as to respond to them as an organism. We do not feel the action of light ordinarily, but we are conscious of the effects of gravity and heat. We do not respond to some magnetic or electric influences but certain applications of them can be either destructive or beneficial.
Through the space in which you sit at the present moment there are passing radio waves of various frequencies and energies. You do not respond to them as such. Only when converted into sound do they impinge on the consciousness.
Through knowledge acquired by science we have learned to control and use many of the manifestations of physical energy. We cannot break the law of gravity but we overcome some of its effects and even use them advantageously.
Another set of limitations to which we are subject are those of the body. We must have food, oxygen, water and live within a restricted range of temperature. We have learned to exist within these circumscriptions and even to mitigate some of their rigors.
But there is a third set of influences in which we live which is proving rather more troublesome—the give and take of life in a society of beings, the actions and reactions arising from human relationships. These are not essentially physical but have to do with how we think, feel and act, how we respond to certain impulses, what our attitude toward life is.
The physical world is constantly traversed with various manifestations of energy, radiation, waves, rays and lines of force. The human realm, similarly, is a vast network of forces or influences arising out of human relationships.
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WE seek to master the laws
governing physical phenomena because
science has taught us that by
applying knowledge and wisdom, life
can be softened, made easier and better,
but we hesitate to apply a similar
procedure, a spiritual technique to human
relationships, even though we
know that by so doing we can have
the “life more abundant.”
Practically all of the manifestations of physical energy have been harnessed to serve mankind. Our handling of them is directed to a single purpose, human comfort and well being, ease and advancement, and the past century is evidence of how greatly natural energy can modify life.
With such a successful example before us, does it not seem logical to try to apply a similar method to the influences arising from human relationships, to direct them toward the achievement of better understanding, of cooperation, of living at peace with one another?
Science recognizes that there is a great supply of physical energy, available in many forms, and has learned the laws. This bespeaks faith in such energy.
Likewise should we not recognize that there is also a great store of spiritual energy, and seek to learn the laws by which it can be made effective in life. In this instance faith implies not only belief but action.
Science seeks the truth of a subject no matter where it may lead. Should we not then seek the truth about troublesome human problems regardless of any privileged system or persons?
Science generally seeks to apply acquired knowledge to useful ends. It is true that discoveries can be perverted to the arts of destruction, constituting one of the great tests that man has to face. If we have faith in the existence of such a power as that of the Holy Spirit, acquire knowledge of it, is not the next step to apply that knowledge to solving human perplexities?
THERE is a need for converging, for focusing all of the positive and good influences arising out of human relationships to a great common purpose, and of eliminating the negative, or divergent ones. Just as science seeks to focus the results of its discoveries and findings to the betterment of man, so should spiritual knowledge be focused on human problems, for the matter is one of the heart, mind and spirit, and is subject to laws which have been brought to us in this day, in understandable and applicable form, in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.
Life is constantly and continually agitated by conflicting purposes, divergent endeavors, perverted aims and competitive battles—influences which tend to disorganize, to disperse individual and group cumulative effort, to foster opposition and antagonism.
This condition is quite similar to perverting some great scientific discovery to destruction and war.
Human relationships can be so
managed as to have a mutual aim, to
converge endeavors, to have positive
direction, tending towards organization
[Page 388]
as a whole, on integration of individual
and group effort, dispelling
opposition and discord in such a degree
that the negatives disappear and
the positive, good influences motivate
humanity.
In the spiritual world this is akin to marshalling the forces and influences, the radiations and energies of the physical world to man’s use.
THERE is only one great power which can change divergencies into convergencies, which can teach us to use the forces among which we live for good, just as it has thrown light into the dark places of physical science and caused discoveries to emerge from the unseen and unused recesses of nature into the world of everyday utility. This great power is that of the Holy Spirit—embracing innumerable bounties of God. It is an influence which, if superimposed upon the welter and confusion of our present, random disorganization in human affairs can bring unity.
But in order that this may happen it must be recognized, (faith), learned about (knowledge) and applied (action.)
The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh instills faith, contains the knowledge and raises the call to action. Once heard, its claims and import cannot be ignored. It heralds the Unfoldment of the Divine Civilization, upon the threshold of which we now stand. Through it is apportioned for human needs whatever spiritual energy is requisite.
“A little child digs his well in the seashore sand, and the Great Atlantic, miles deep, miles wide, is stirred all through and through to fill it for him.”[1]
- ↑ Phillips Brooks.
‘ALÍ
MARZIEH NABÍL CARPENTER
HIS bed, they say, was a ram skin, and his tunic was too thin to protect him from the cold. When his day’s work as Caliph was over, he would blow out the candle that was paid for by the State, and sit in darkness. In prayer he would say to his Lord: “How then can ‘Alí lay him to rest, if there be yet a soul who suffereth injustice in any Muslim land?”
He was only a boy when he came to believe in the one true God, and he had never bowed himself before an idol; for this, men called him “Him whose face was never sullied.” He was cousin to the Prophet, but he was son-in-law as well (for his wife was Fáṭimih, who is known as “The Lady of Paradise” and “Our Lady of Light.”) The deeds he did, the words he wrote, have lasted thirteen hundred years.
When the Meccans gathered, that white dawn, to kill the Prophet, it was ‘Alí they found, wrapped in the Prophet’s cloak. He was with Muḥammad at the Battle of Badr, he received sixteen wounds at Uhud, he fought single-handed at the War of the Trench, when Arabia and her idols rose against God. He carried away the banner at the storming of Khaybar.
He was with Muḥammad on that last loving pilgrimage to Mecca. And on the long way back, Muhammad stopped the caravan, and stood up on a pulpit of pack-saddles, while the multitude gathered in the thorn trees’ shade; and He spoke, and said: “Whoever hath Me as his Master, hath ‘Alí as his Master . . . God be a friend to his friends and a foe to his foes.” Then Muḥammad said, “I have been summoned to the gate of God, and I shall soon depart to God, to be concealed from you;” and He told them of two treasures He was leaving them: “The greatest treasure is the Book of God . . . Hold fast to it and do not lose it and do not change it. The other treasure is the line of My descendants . . .”
And so it was that ‘Alí became the first Imám, the “Guardian of God,” the divinely ordained, divinely inspired, Interpreter of the Faith, the “Commander of the Faithful;” and through him “the eye of God’s mercy shone upon men.”
But when the Prophet lay dying,
men wrangled at His bedside, and
when He called for materials to write
His will, they said He wandered; and
in the confusion following the Death,
another was made Caliph. And ‘Alí
stood aside, to protect the Faith from
schism. The years went by. Three
[Page 390]
Caliphs reigned. Then ‘Alí was appointed
to his rightful place.
His wife had gone long since of a sorrowing heart; the shadow of martyrdom lay over his sons, for one was to die by poison, one to be hacked asunder on the plains of Karbilá—on days so harsh that men still wear mourning for them. Now enemies stood against him, and masses seethed around him, and he rode to battle again; ahead of his troops again, with his flashing black eyes, his long white beard, his high, white Egyptian hat for the enemy to see.
And his men left him, and betrayed him. And there came a Friday when he went to the mosque at Kúfih, to summon the people to prayer, and a man stood hidden, with a drawn sword, and the man stabbed him.
He lingered till the Sunday night, gasping that his murderer be killed without torture, with but a single stroke.
Men say he left only a few dirhems, a Qur’án and a sword.
FROM THE SAYINGS OF ‘ALÍ[1]
A wise man trusts in his work, a fool in his dreams.
Books are the gardens of the wise.
Knowledge is a tree that grows in the heart and flowers from the tongue.
The covetous is poor though he own the earth.
Thrift is half thy store.
Jealousy is the soul’s jail.
The wise liveth, even after death; the ignorant dieth, even before.
The tongue is a wild beast: loose it—it bites.
The learned seeth with his mind and heart, the ignorant only with his eyes.
The hypocrite hath a sweet tongue and a bitter heart.
He who preacheth what he doth not practice is a bow without a string.
Beware of anger for it beginneth in folly and endeth in remorse.
The cloak thou givest to another lasteth longer than thine own.
You are the game that death stalketh; stand and he seizeth you, fly and he followeth.
The stalwart is he who overcometh himself.
The depth of the earth is peopled with dead, and its rim with sick.
The slightest of foes is he who showeth his hate.
It is better not to sin than to seek absolution.
Be not the friend of him who blameth men, for how shall his friend escape his censure?
This life and the next are as a bigamist’s two wives; when one doth smile the other sulketh.
- ↑ Translated by Marzieh Nabil Carpenter.
THE NEW CREATION
ALICE SIMMONS COX
VII. THE CALL OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
THE trumpet call for a new advance in the march of human progress has definitely been sounded. There are some who have not yet heard. Others who do not try to hear. But the majority of people in the civilized nations of our world are conscious of the new challenge in the affairs of men.
Whether or not the observer of world events considers that God has proclaimed the dawn of a new era for which the human race must make itself worthy, whether or not he knows that God wills that civilization come of age on the earth planet, if he thinks at all carefully he comes to the conclusion that a notable change is taking place. He sees on the part of world peoples a struggling endeavor to pass from self-contained national consciousness to international cooperation; on the part of industry a desperate move from the natural law of warfare and survival of the fittest to that of ultimate cooperative efforts for the general good; and in the sphere of racial understanding, a growing belief that all men are brothers, physically, mentally and spiritually similar creations.
If from the observer’s point of view the factors of destruction in the present state of the world seem to overshadow these tendencies toward integration, he will nevertheless be convinced that catastrophe could be avoided if nations, races, classes would learn to regulate the conduct of all relationships on the principles of consultation, cooperation and peaceful settlement. In this manner a new standard is becoming a reality in the minds of men. It is in effect, whatever men regard as its origin, a call to the whole human race to fulfill another epoch in its evolution.
“The present shifting of outlook
would seem to involve something
more fundamental and comprehensive”
than a mood, Harry A. Overstreet
believes. It is more than a fancy,
more than opportunistic desire. Even
more than a bit of history repeating
itself while the hands of a clock return
to the same hour at the end of a
circle around the dial. “It would
seem, in effect, to involve a basically
new philosophy of life,” Mr. Overstreet
asserts. “It is one that goes beyond
the sophistication of self-interest,
of each for himself. It goes even
beyond the genial casualness of ‘live
and let live.’ It would seem to be
[Page 392]
more adequately expressed in the
phrase, ‘live and help live.’ For the
new outlook would seem already to
be presupposing a common interest
in the welfare of every member of
society.”[1]
That such a positive right-about-face as this should take place in the consciousness of humanity is not possible through the evolutionary processes of the physical and mental capacities inherent in man, Bahá’u’lláh teaches. The human soul is an individual identity, sensitive to its environment, possessing capacities of meeting that environment, discovering the secrets of nature, controlling the powers of lower creation, and capable of relationships with its fellow-men of a character little yet understood. The latter relationships, however, Bahá’u’lláh explains, if not of a moral and spiritual nature ultimately degrade the human race and prevent it from reaching the apex of human progress. Morality, spirituality, can become characteristics of any civilization only when men have been educated in a spiritual environment to turn their neutral powers of comprehension and sovereignty to the execution of ideals of truth and beauty which are attributes of the God of the universe. Only when trained in obedience to the highest laws of spirit can they build lives of true worth. Such attraction, guidance, education, is possible only through the unperverted teachings of a Divine Messenger of God.
“THE light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples. They are like unto leaven that leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. Through them the clouds rain their bounty upon men, and the earth bringeth forth its fruits. All things must needs have a cause, a motive power, an animating principle. These souls and symbols of detachment have provided, and will continue to provide the supreme moving impulse in the world of being.”[2]
Because God has, through the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, awakened men to a higher consciousness—that of the oneness of humanity—the shifting outlook is now taking place on a world scale. Its origin is God Himself, who again has poured out the bounty of His wisdom as times before He has done for peoples on some part of this earth. Its essential nature is a budding realization of the power and need of universal love. Its present effect is a widespread disturbance in all world affairs as the force of new ideals meets the decadent powers of an old order of limited knowledge and selfish motivation. Its ultimate purpose, as revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, is the establishment of a world commonwealth, the Kingdom of God on earth. Its banner will be the ensign of the Most High, indicative to all who read that the principles of truth and right, justice, mercy, love, rule over men’s hearts.
The challenge then that meets the
world this hour is the Word of God
Himself calling out to men to establish
His Kingdom. “This is the Voice
of God, if ye do but hearken,” Bahá’u’lláh
[Page 393]
proclaims. “This is the Day
Spring of the Revelation of God, did
ye but know it. This is the Dawning-Place
of the Cause of God, were ye
to recognize it. This is the Source of
the commandment of God, did ye but
judge it fairly.” “The whole human
race hath longed for this Day, that
perchance it may fulfil that which
well beseemeth its station, and is
worthy of its destiny. Blessed is the
man whom the affairs of the world
have failed to deter from recognizing
Him Who is the Lord of all things.”
“This is a matchless Day. Matchless
must, likewise, be the tongue that
celebrateth the praise of the Desire of
all nations, and matchless the deed
that aspireth to be acceptable in His
sight.”[3]
THE fundamental all-comprehensive teaching of Bahá’u’lláh for this Day—now, a warning and a promise of deepest import and, in the future, the acknowledged standard of righteousness,—is the oneness of mankind. The message of love borne by the Buddha, the counsel of the Christ to “love thy neighbor,” the call of Muhammad to unity in love for God, have been explicitly expanded by Bahá’u’lláh to fulfill the needs of the entire modern world. His message through its spiritual power is raising the level of spiritual consciousness wherein is revealed the original unity of all life as it emanates from the great cosmic Love of God, and climbs upward through multitudinous forms until the souls of men, aided by a Prophet Educator find God in reflecting His Love, universal love, in all their relationships with humanity. In this respect the Day of Bahá’u’lláh, destined to unfold through many centuries, is not the repetition of history, the exact return of a former recorded period of Revelation or development, but unique in its station, the culmination of preparatory cycles, the very birth of spiritual consciousness in the race at large.
In the growth toward this higher consciousness there have been periods following the advent of each Prophet when ideals of unity in loyalty to God transcended tribal or national loyalties. Then gradually the rhythm of life in each specific era touched a low because self-love, love of race or nation, became stronger than the inspired love of God. Christendom disintegrated into competitive nationalities. The Moslem world lost its unifying force and split not only into hundreds of religious sects but also into hostile groups and spheres of political influence.
In this Day not only is the creative,
unifying aspect of God’s Spirit empowered
to renew old allegiances, reunite
separated peoples, instil life into
traditional religion but to band
them all together, religion with religion,
nation with nation, in a supreme
organic unity, a dynamic brotherhood
of men. The ebb tide of progress has
turned again to the flood this time
to meet the farthest horizons. The
change began in 1844, that year when
Alí-Muhammad, the Báb, proclaimed
the dawn of a new Era, and simultaneously
by His advent and His Message
as a Divine Prophet and Forerunner
of Bahá’u’lláh mystically
lifted the world to a state of receptivity
for the Great Messenger to follow
[Page 394]
Him. His was the clarion call announcing
the Kingdom on earth to be
actually at hand.
The promised Day of Consummation was foreseen in part and prophesied in part by many of the spiritual Founders and leaders of previous dispensations. The Zoroastrian Avesta says there will come a time of the end “when the dead will rise, when life and immortality will come, and the world will be restored,” when the old creation will have become deathless —the living prosperous creation of the Good Spirit. The spirit of the lower nature of man will perish, though it struggle violently. Then will men cleave unto the victorious new Saoshyant who will close the long cycle of progress with the new creation of Ahura Mazda, God of Light, that creation in which men will appear in the image of God.[4]
“In all times,” states a Muhammadan historian, “the Mussulmans have held the opinion that towards the end of time a man of the family of the Prophet must necessarily appear in order to support religion and bring about the triumph of justice.”[5]
The Hebrew David sang of the coming of the King of Glory, and Isaiah twenty-five thousand years ago foretold in graphic detail the dawn of an age when the splendor of peace and righteousness would girdle the earth because men “shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
The Christ referred to the prophetic passages of Daniel, giving the approval of His authority to this prophet’s vision of an age when the Great Michael should stand up at the time of the end to judge the world and awaken those who sleep in the dust of materialism. For Daniel, the prophecy he had received remained partially unintelligible, sealed until the time the cryptic language of the date of the future millenium should be read by the Great Messenger of that Day. Saint John was given a vision of the New Jerusalem on earth when the Christ Spirit would return and the Lord sit upon the throne of spiritual power and glory, ruling His people through the avenue of their devotion to Him. “And he that sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new. . . It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give unto him that is athirst the water of life freely’.”
Countless human attempts to explain
such flights of spiritual vision
as evidenced in religious prophecy of
this nature have resulted in the widely
accepted conclusion that the imaginative
stories of primitive peoples
have passed from mouth to mouth
giving similarity to the traditional
history of separated peoples and
therefore robbing the tales of all
reality. Interpretation such as this
may be one of the signs of a decadent
age, when spiritual life is so depleted
that prophetic inspiration appears a
thing impossible, and divine guidance
through the ages a fiction of the human
mind. It would seem more reasonable
to believe that the leaders
who have stood on the mountain tops
of historical progress could see with
clarity, not only the intricate patterns
of their own day but also with some
degree of rightness the shadows of
the future. Bahá’u’lláh teaches that
[Page 395]
spiritual vision is a capacity of a Manifestation
of God and that at times
a ray of such inspiration is let fall on
the mind of a great teacher. At any
rate the events of the present century
will soon prove or disprove the truth
of the ancient prophesies of a day of
unprecedented spiritual glory to come
for the world.
THE rhythm of progress through the evolutionary lines of Divine teachers, from the time of Adam through Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, through Buddha and Zoroaster and the lesser prophets of the farther East, has in this time reached a final crescendo in which the past avenues of advance for various peoples have found one harmonious fulfilment. No wonder our contemporary men of insight feel the pulse of new life beating in the sluggish channels of world intercourse, of human art and science, of struggling faiths. No wonder great minds are predicting, even under the ominous threat of further world disaster, the evolution of a “spiritualized humanity,” a “golden age,” “universal peace.” If not conscious of the Source of the transforming impetus, they are nevertheless sensitive to the direction of its movement, and becoming filled with an assurance of its ultimate victory. On the unseen plane of spiritual life they are touched by the Spirit of God, through the coming of His latest Prophet, and thus are being prepared for life in His new civilization.
One of the most evident signs of an awakening search for spiritual law is now the growing appreciation on the part of many souls for the teachings of all of God’s past Educators. Another, the deepening consciousness, born of scientific investigation and thought, that one creative power of cohesion, attraction, love, controls the universe, a universe of law with which man must learn to conform if he would live joyously. Through a larger understanding of history, and of religious traditions, through the use of reason and its hand-maid, science, man can go very far. Through the capacities of human intellect civilization can thus approach the threshold of integrated life, which is harmony with all of the laws of God. There is a final step, however, says Bahá’u’lláh, a last effort required before men can attain harmony and thereby acquire ability to regenerate this decaying, chaotic civilization. That step is to put themselves as a people, the majority of them enlightened, put themselves in tune with spiritual laws as they should be applied to their period of evolution.
“Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration,” explains Bahá’u’lláh. “The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations in its exigencies and requirements?”[6]
Men who have not yet discovered
the Source of true knowledge can not
apply the right remedy for the specific
problems which afflict the age. The
betterment of all things depends in
all times upon the knowledge of God,
Bahá’u’lláh declares. It is true, also,
that in the time of a new Revelation
[Page 396]
a new life is “breathed into every human
frame. . . all created things proclaim
the evidence of this world-wide
regeneration.” “The world of being
shineth in this Day with the resplendency
of this Divine Revelation. All
created things extol its saving grace
and sing its praises. The universe is
wrapt in an ecstasy of joy and gladness.”[7]
But even with this assistance
at hand men must choose the way of
building or re-building their societies.
The way of choice will determine the
destiny. Those who fail to seek the
certain shelter and guidance of Bahá’u’lláh
in His time “are powerless to
benefit from the spiritual sustenance
that hath been sent down through the
heavenly grace of His Most Great
Name.”[8] Great is the difference between
the insight of those who are
unconsciously awakened by God today
and those who, when awakened,
choose to recognize and draw help
from the Source of revealed Knowledge.
The gulf that separates is the
difference between light and darkness,
between a civilization that is
doomed and one that can find resurrection.
To save civilization we must rediscover the divine plan for mankind, Dr. John A. Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, believes. “Part of the reproach for the stalling of civilization must be borne by the world’s religious forces,” he states. “Christendom, let’s confess, has not lived up to its simple first principles. Christian nations, forgetting their ideal, inherent in the Christian faith of a world community ruled by love . . . have condoned economic and international policies that ran counter to the teachings of their faith. . . . The self-centered State and a God-centered world can never be reconciled. The propagation of hate can never bring the reign of peace and good-will on earth. These new makeshift structures in which suffering people put their hope are destined to fall, like Babylon of old, because they are built wholly by man’s limited wisdom and in disregard of the divine plan. If this secular idea masquerading as religion should prevail —and its seeds have been spread by the winds of the world storm into many lands—then civilization and culture must sink into new dark ages.”[9]
Abundant evidence of cosmic design does exist in the physical universe modern men of science affirm. In each kingdom of phenomenal creation are signs of a creative, controlling, coordinating force that ultimately produces forms of life as if in accordance with some divine ordination. Students of organization in the realm of humanity detect in the process of social evolution a tendency toward unification on ever-widening scale, but that such progress should be a part of the plan of a Creator, only a few do believe. Of that realm of spirit wherein all men are created as brothers, where exists a celestial pattern for spiritual unity of mankind, peoples of the world are today largely ignorant. But it is according to that pattern that maturing humanity is destined to build a new order of civilization, Bahá’u’lláh proclaims.
Rediscovery of that ennobling vision
of a future Kingdom of God
which inspired numerous peoples in
[Page 397]
past eras, attainment to a consciousness
of the nature of God’s plan for
this Day, is possible only through
communication with the Holy Spirit
as revealed through the new Revelation,
Bahá’u’lláh asserts. Herein is
made manifest the Word of God for
disclosing of the divine purpose to
men in that measure of fulness necessary
for the age.
“The foundation of real brotherhood, the cause of loving cooperation and reciprocity and the source of real kindness and unselfish devotion is none other than the breaths of the Holy Spirit,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains. “Without this influence and animus it is impossible. We may be able to realize some degrees of fraternity through other motives but these are limited associations and subject to change. When brotherhood is founded upon the Holy Spirit, it is eternal, changeless, unlimited.”[10] The Holy Spirit is the divine bounties and perfections reflected to men in the Manifestation of the Prophets of God, who in each cycle of progress according to the plan of God shine upon the world with the resplendency of spiritual ideals. It was the pillar of fire that led the Israelites into their Land of Promise; the Light that illumined the way for the great empire of Asoka; the Love that knit the vast domain of the Roman Empire in peace for nearly three hundred years. Once it shone from the brow of Moses, once from the teachings of the Buddha then from the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It gives of its radiance again today, Bahá’u’lláh announces, in the message He has brought for a bewildered humanity. It is the only effective healing power.
“The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society,” Bahá’u’lláh warns. “What else but the Elixir of His (God’s) potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it? Is it within human power, O Hakim, to effect in the constituent elements of any minute and indivisible particle of matter so complete a transformation as to transmute it into purest gold? Perplexing and difficult as this may appear, the still greater task of converting satanic strength into heavenly power is one that We have been empowered to accomplish. The Force capable of such a transformation transcendeth the potency of the Elixir itself. The Word of God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity required for so great and far-reaching a change.”[11]
IN this cycle Bahá’u’lláh
has not only “imbued mankind with
a new and regenerating Spirit.” His
purpose for the world includes the
Revelation of specific laws, the establishment
of definite institutions and
provision for the essentials of a Divine
Economy. “These are destined
to be a pattern for future society,”
explains Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’í
Guardian and Interpreter of the
Word, “a supreme instrument for the
establishment of the Most Great
Peace, and the one agency for the
unification of the world, and the
proclamation of the reign of righteousness
and justice upon the earth.
. . . Therein lies the distinguishing
feature of the Bahá’í Revelation.
Therein lies the strength of the unity
of the Faith, of the validity of a Revelation
[Page 398]
that claims not to destroy or
belittle previous Revelations, but to
connect, unify, and fulfill them. . . .
“This priceless gem of Divine Revelation, now still in its embryonic state, shall evolve within the shell of His law, and shall forge ahead, undivided and unimpaired, till it embraces the whole of mankind. Only those who have already recognized the supreme station of Bahá’u’lláh, only those whose hearts have been touched by His love, and have become familiar with the potency of His spirit, can adequately appreciate the value of this Divine Economy—His inestimable gift to mankind.”[12]
Those who have recognized Bahá’u’lláh and have known His love hear the call of the Kingdom as it sounded to Mullá Husayn when the Báb gave to him Bahá’u’lláh’s message that a new Day had dawned. A sense of strength and courage and gladness transfigured his being and it seemed in his own soul, where at last he realized his inmost desire had become one with the Will of God, that a voice was calling to all mankind: “Awake, for His Cause is made manifest. The portal of His grace is open wide; enter therein, O peoples of the world! For He who is your promised one is come!”[13]
- ↑ We Move in New Directions, pp. 270-271.
- ↑ Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 157.
- ↑ Idem, pp. 33, 39.
- ↑ Sacred Books of the East, III, pp. 164, 195, 286, 306, 307.
- ↑ Darmester, The Mahdi, p. 87.
- ↑ Gleanings, p. 213.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 14.
- ↑ Gleanings, pp. 189-190.
- ↑ New York Times Magazine, February 21, 1937.
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, IV, p. 125.
- ↑ Gleanings, p. 200.
- ↑ Shoghi Effendi, The Future World Commonwealth, pp. 6-7.
- ↑ Nabil’s Narrative, p. 65.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Edited by BERTHA HYDE KIRKPATRICK
There is no question . . . there is a new spirit in the land today which demands a higher standard of living for the average man. . . . We shall hear more . . . of a living wage, of better housing conditions, of unemployment insurance and of social security . . . we have come to an era which will stress the welfare of the many, rather than the privileges of the few.—BISHOP LAWRENCE.
The Call of God, when raised,
breathed a new life into the body of
mankind, and infused a new spirit into
the whole creation. It is for this
reason that the world hath been
moved to its depths, and the hearts
and consciences of men been quickened.
Erelong the evidences of this
regeneration will be revealed, and
the fast asleep will be awakened.—
‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
There is no peace talk in Great
Britain. There is only talk of keeping
Britain out of war . . . There is
no peace talk in the United States.
An “Emergency Peace Campaign”
recently came to a futile end in this
country. It expended the largest sum
of money ever raised here by voluntary
gifts under the peace banner, to
revive the idealism of the earlier postwar
period.—CHRISTIAN CENTURY.
We can well perceive how the
whole human race is encompassed
with great, with incalculable afflictions.
We see it languishing on its
bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned.
They that are intoxicated
by self conceit have interposed themselves
between it and the Divine and
infallible Physician.—BAHÁ’U’LLÁH.
Once more, the choice is ours: We
may either arbitrarily limit the cooperative
spirit within the boundaries of
a clan or nation; or we may allow it
to have free play over the whole
world. To love one’s neighbor as
oneself may mean much or little, according
to our interpretation of the
word “neighbor.” It is left to us to
decide whether that interpretation
shall be narrow or broad.—ALDOUS
HUXLEY.
At such a time as this Bahá’u’lláh
appeared in Persia. He founded the
oneness of the world of humanity. He
declared that all humanity is the servant
of God, and that God is kind to
all; that He created all and provides
for all; that He nurtures all; therefore
why should we be unkind?—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
[Page 400]
What is the use of new inventions
and new knowledge if they lead us
only to a dark age?—ADMIRAL BYRD.
Look at God’s great gift of power
to man, by which he is able to do so
much for the advancement of civilization!
Then reflect on the terrible misuse
of this divine gift. Instead of
using it to promote, love, concord and
friendship between nations, behold
how destruction receives its weapons,
hatred and wholesale slaughter of
mankind employs the inventions of
science; . . . swords instead of plowshares
are forged. O, the pity of it
all!—‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
We shall never have a truly great
country until fair and equitable treatment
is afforded to the men who plan
and administer our industries, and
those who work for them, truly work
with them, in a spirit of complete
cooperation.—JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.
According to the Divine law, employees
should not be paid merely by
wages. Nay, rather they should be
partners in every work. The question
of socialization is very difficult. It will
not be solved by strikes for wages.—
‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ.
It would seem to me that the time
has now come to combine the good
characteristics of the individualism
developed during the past 300 years
with a more conscious recognition of
the general welfare. In most of his
personal activities, I anticipate that
each individual in the years to come
will have more choice and more freedom
than at any time in the past. But
I also anticipate that the economic
life will be more expressed through
groups having very clearly defined
rights and responsibilities.—HENRY
A. WALLACE, reported in The Springfield
Republican.
God has not retired from active
service. . . . He is not gone from earth;
He is present and dominant. The ultimate
triumph of His righteousness
is certain. All the travail of the present
only brings it nearer.—ELIOT
PORTER in Fellowship, March, 1937.
We stand on the threshold of an
age whose convulsions proclaim alike
the death-pangs of the old order and
the birth-pangs of the new.—SHOGHI
EFFENDI.
[Page 401]
EDITOPalAL PUPaPOSE
EDITORIAL PURPOSE
• WORLD ORDER MAGAZINE seeks to mirror forth the principles revealed by Bahá’u’lláh for the renewal and unification of society. These principles it recognizes as the impetus and the goal of all the influences making for regeneration throughout the world. It feels itself a part of the new world community coming into being, the commonwealth of mind and spirit raised high above the conflicts, the passions, the prejudices and the violences marking the passing of the old order and the birth of the new. Its aim is to maintain a meeting-place consecrated to peace, where minds touched with the spirit of the age may gather for calm and dispassionate discussion of truth. The scope of its content is best defined in the following summary of the Bahá’í Faith:—
• “The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the unity of God and of His Prophets, upholds the principle of an unfettered search affer truth, condemns all forms of superstitions and prejudice, teaches that the fundamental purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand-in-hand with science, and that it constitutes the sole and ultimate basis of a peaceful, an ordered and progressive society. It inculcates the principle of equal opportunity, rights and privileges for both sexes, advocates compulsory education, abolishes extremes of wealth and poverty, exalts work performed in the spirit of service to the rank of worship, recommends the adoption of an auxiliary international language, and provides the necessary agencies for the establishment and safeguarding of a permanent and universal peace.”
TOWARDS THIS GOAL OF A NEW WORLD ORDER, DIVINE IN ORIGIN, ALL- EMBRACING IN SCOPE, HUMANIIY MUST STRIVE
