Tag: spiritual forces

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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
- Three Protagonists Power

Spiritual Magnetisim

Spiritual sources of power and capacity are relatively more intangible than material sources; they nonetheless exist and exert influence just the same.  One way to discuss their dynamics and learn how to draw upon them is to use the analogy of a magnet.

A magnet is an object, composed of a common substance like iron, and when under proper conditions, creates an invisible magnetic field – harnessing the power inherent in invisible electric charges to produce an invisible electromagnetic force.  The only difference between a magnetized piece of iron and a non-magnetized piece of iron is the internal alignment of its elements.  Basically, if the electron configuration among the atoms are such that the poles and charges are all aligned in the same direction, the material will produce a net total magnetic field.  If the electron configurations are in different and random directions, the material will not be magnetized.

Quite an insightful analogy, one must say!  The human soul (magnet) has the latent capacity to manifest spiritual powers (magnetism), such as the power to unify and the power to attract other hearts through goodly deeds and a praiseworthy character.  The human being acquires these powers through the proper alignment (electronic configuration) of its thoughts, words, actions, attitudes, etc., with the spiritual forces and laws that govern reality.

Social institutions, such as the family, the state, the university, the clinic, and so on, can also manifest collective powers of justice and unity, for instance, through their proper internal alignment – both of individuals constituting those agencies and of the structure, values, purpose, and nature of the organization itself.

Likewise, communities, when composed of individuals and institutions described above, will manifest characteristics of love, oneness, and reciprocity.  It will become a wholly magnetized environment that elicits the capacities of all towards contributing to a process of collective betterment.

Categories
Human Nature Power

Spiritual Sources of Power

The conventional analysis of the role of power in society has only focused on material sources of power.  The discourse of this blog acknowledges that civilization has both a material and spiritual dimension, that science and religion are complementary systems of knowledge, and that human nature has both a material and spiritual nature.  All of these notions follow from a certain understanding of reality itself – that reality, on an ontological level, has a spiritual dimension, as well as a physical one.  We have physical laws and forces, which we have only recently begun to comprehend and harness; and we have spiritual laws and forces, which are relatively more intangible that we have a more dim understanding of at present.  However, we respond to spiritual forces regardless of our understanding of them, just like we respond to gravity regardless of our understanding of it.  It follows easily, from this understanding of reality, that there are physical or material sources of power, and there are likewise spiritual sources of power.  How do we draw up and factor in these powers?

Humanity’s history clearly proves the ability to conceive of power in more creative ways than brutish military strength or manipulative economic clout; evidence demonstrates that the human race has always tapped into spiritual sources of power.  These include the power of beauty, the power of justice, the power of humility, the power of cooperation and reciprocity, the power of selflessness.  Even more obviously is the power of truth, responsible for great artistic, scientific, and philosophical advances; the power of character, inspiring countless generations to create positive change; the power of unity, without which we have no progress; and the power of love.

Before delving into the process of drawing upon these powers, we can already see by this short list of spiritual sources of power that they are unlimited resources – power need not be reduced to a scarce material good for which groups must compete.  There is not a fixed amount of humility, cooperation, unity, or integrity, which, when used up is then gone.  Understanding that intangibility is not mutually exclusive with existence helps one understand these powers’ unlimited ability to transform society and human thought.