Tag: history

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- Empowerment - Religion - Three Protagonists Development Discourse Justice Oneness

120 years of discourse

Where it all began...in the West.

A few days ago passed the 120th anniversary of the first mention of the Baha’i Faith in the Western hemisphere.  At last, the spiritual forces released by Baha’u’llah’s Revelation had an “initial conversation” through which they could be channeled.  Many of the early Baha’is of the West interacted with the Faith through this initial conversation – whether they were present, read about in it a newspaper, or heard about it in a subsequent conversation.

 

September of 1893, just over a year after Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension, Reverend George Ford, a missionary in Syria, read a paper by a Presbyterian minister named Henry Jessup, at the World Parliament of Religions held in downtown Chicago.  After speaking about Christianity, he ending the speech with,

 

In the Palace of Bahjí , or Delight, just outside the Fortress of ‘Akká, on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since, a famous Persian sage, the Bábí Saint, named Bahá’u’lláh -the “Glory of God”- the head of that vast reform party of Persian Muslims, who accept the New Testament as the Word of God and Christ as the Deliverer of men, who regard all nations as one, and all men as brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike, that we repeat them as our closing words:

“That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religions should cease and differences of race be annulled. What harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the ‘Most Great Peace’ shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.”

 

Thus began a discourse on Baha’u’llah’s principle of the oneness of humankind.

 

One way to think about discourse is as the instrumentality through which spiritual forces are able to influence the hearts and minds of human beings.  As thoughts and habits of behavior are altered, so are social structures.  The initial conversation – the Word of God brought by a Manifestation of God and subsequently spread across the world – leads to a community dedicated to translating high ideals into action.  This new system of values reorders consciousness and behavior and restructures the administration of society.  Eventually, a civilization emerges that embodies the concepts contained throughout this conversation.  As more and more people engaged in this conversation, the civilization becomes more and more just – as justice requires universal participation.  And as it becomes more and more just, it takes on higher degrees of unity.

 

The discourse on peace that began 120 years ago in the heart of North America has gained in strength and momentum, and taken on degrees of complexity.  The conversation has taken many forms and included many topics over the last century, and is currently about a community-building endeavor that receives its impetus from an education process that seeks to build capacity in its protagonists for acts of service through imparting skills, insights, and knowledge.  But it’s always been the same conversation. This is humanity’s conversation about its spiritual and social destiny – all can contribute, all have a say.  And at a deep level, all are connected to it….all can learn from it and advance it.  The conversation’s aim is to empower populations to take charge and responsibility for their own development, as a people.  In what ways are your daily thoughts, words, and actions contributing to this conversation?

 

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Categories
- Religion - Science - Three Protagonists Development Knowledge

History of the World, Part 4

Humanity’s social life is evolving towards fruition of a world civilization.  This process is propelled by two complementary systems of knowledge and practice – religion and science.  Both of these systems advance human insights into the same reality.  Both use similar faculties of the mind and soul, such as reason, imagination, attraction to beauty, and commitment to truth.  Both have underlying assumptions, a language, methods, and both progress over time.  Science without religion becomes blind materialism, and religion without science becomes superstition.  Together, they advance civilization.  What are some examples of past societies where the two were in harmony?

The source of true religion is, has been, and will continue to be the Manifestation of God.  Thus, the ultimate cause of the advancement of civilization is the education given to humanity by the Manifestations throughout time.  They bring teachings according to the requirements of the age, and their teachings unfold progressively over time.  There is but one religion, as there is but one humanity.

We know that humanity’s evolutionary process is cyclical in nature, like seasons of a year.  These Manifestations bring periods of spiritual vigor, akin to a springtime.  We are currently living in such a transition time of regeneration, where there is an interplay of two sets of forces.  The first is the disintegrative force – bringing turmoil, suffering, destruction, and at the same time, collapsing the obstacles and breaking down hindrances on the path towards world unity.  It is haphazard and chaotic in its application, and mysterious in nature.  The other is the integrative force – systematic, steady, calm, persistent, as it gives rise to new systems founded on oneness and justice.  It is manifest through cooperation, reciprocity, and mutual aid, and through the spirit of world solidarity we increasingly see.

This cyclic, organic, evolutionary process of the advancement of civilization – propelled by knowledge, vitalized by the Manifestation, shaped by integrative and disintegrative forces – is nonetheless largely determined by human agency.  It is on the will of our three protagonists – individuals, communities, and institutions – that depends the outcome of our unfolding drama.

Categories
- Human Body Development Human Nature Oneness

History of the World, Part 3

The next point regarding our perspective of history is that there is purpose in creation; in other words, evolution is understood as a teleological process.  Characterizing evolutionary processes with this word – meaning that it is directed by an intrinsic purpose – might conjure up controversial thoughts and connotations.  It is true that teleological “grand narratives” in the past have been used to oppress peoples and impose ideologies.  Yet, we can’t ignore a truth based on its abuses in the past.  Let us place society’s notions aside and simply think clearly.  Isn’t it the case that the purpose of the seed is to develop into a tree?  Isn’t it the case that the purpose of an embryo is to develop into a human being, and the purpose of a child to develop into an adult?  The seed does not randomly or haphazardly become a tree – it is its purpose.

Similarly, the biological evolution of a human being has a purpose; and the social evolution of humanity has a purpose.  The human body’s purpose is to provide the vehicle for the expression of the soul, through the human mind – and the purpose of an individual’s life is to develop spiritual qualities.  This purpose is realized through selfless service to humanity.  And the purpose of humanity’s collective life is to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization – eventually a world civilization that has achieved a dynamic coherence between the material and the spiritual dimensions of life.

The oneness of humankind is a teleological truth (as well as an ontological truth, which we discussed a number of posts ago).  It provides the purpose and direction for humanity’s social and spiritual evolution.

Categories
- Three Protagonists Development Oneness

History of the World, Part 2

All things evolve and develop along a path, unfolding towards maturity along a spiritual journey. The richest repository of this potential is human civilization progressing from ancient times until the modern age. The present era has seen the emergence of humankind from an age of infancy towards its transitional phase of adolescence before full adulthood. The exigencies of the age we live in vary from those gone before it, the remedies and methods employed even fifty years ago are inadequate and lamentably deficient in addressing the challenges we face today.  Similarly, humanity’s collective achievements and capacities are of a scale undreamt of an age ago.  The explosion of knowledge, alone, testifies that we are indeed evolving through a distinct phase.  This adolescent age of transition is characterized by turbulence, chaos, and a questioning of collective identity; yet discernible is the approaching age of maturity that humanity is irresistibly marching towards.  Whether we arrive is not a question – rather, how will we reach our next evolutionary stage?  Will we stubbornly cling to old patterns of behavior, competitive and atomistic?  Will we embrace a consultative, cooperative, and collective consciousness and proceed united?

The hallmark of this age of maturity is the unification of the entire human race.  This represents the consummation of human evolution, which began with the birth of family life, to tribal solidarity, to the creation of city-states, to independent nations, and will continue to a world civilization.  Why wouldn’t this be so.  Why do we think of all things in terms of evolution, and not humanity?  And then once we do, why would we think our social evolution has halted with our current stage of sovereign nations?  Isn’t world civilization the next obvious step in humanity’s social progression?  Our next stage requires reordering the life of the individual, of the community, and of the institutions, and reconceptualizing the relationships between and among them all.

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Oneness

History of the World, Part 1

In previous posts, we read about various fragmented and incoherent conceptions of the individual and her or his relationship to society.  We also looked at an example of the evolution of conceptions of the individual over a historical perspective.  The concept of the oneness of humanity, woven throughout our earlier posts, has helped illuminate our understanding about the nature of social relationships.  Drawing on the analogy of the human body has helped us avoid fragmented conceptions of social reality.  As we delve deeper into the metaphor, refine our understanding of the relationship between cells, tissues, organs, and systems of the human body, we behold a rich model materializing before us of how to avoid extremes of unfettered individualism and suffocating collectivism – a topic of heated contention in western political theory.

Oneness is our foundational principle, which we use as the context to understand our interconnected and collective life on the planet.  It is through the lens of this principle that we analyze and interpret human history.  The next few posts will provide a perspective of history that is consistent with a conception of global and temporal human oneness.

The first point we consider, is that all things are on a path, evolving and developing towards maturity.  This is true of plants obviously: the progression from seed to sapling to fruit-bearing tree. It is true of the human being: from embryo to infancy and childhood to youth and adulthood. And it is even applicable to a conception of society and the path of human civilization: from family to tribe, to city to nation-state, and to planetary civilization.  Each stage betokens requirements and characteristics, each stage expresses powers and limitations, each stage engenders conditions that the subsequent stage supersedes.  From stage to stage, new capacities are trained and awakened, new limitations wax and old ones wane, and novel challenges are confronted.  The progression is not linear, but rather goes through cycles, characterized by ebbs and flows of tragedies and triumphs, of crisis superseded by victory.