Overcome to achieve the oneness of mankind

In the last post, we have discussed that the principle of oneness of mankind is “the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh revolve” (Shoghi Effendi). This is basically saying, to me at least, all teachings of Baha’i Faith, as beautiful as they are by themselves, will not be properly understood without referring to, or serving to this one single purpose, i.e. the unification of whole human race. Looking from this perspective, the social teachings of Baha’i Faith could be viewed as to provide means to overcome all obstacles standing in the way for achieving the oneness of mankind.

We can easily list out some of the most obvious and detrimental barriers that prevent diverse people from being united:

• Racial prejudices that there are certain intrinsic differences between races that imply one group of people is superior to another;
• Religious fanatics that one believing system possesses the monopoly of truth and others are deserved to be condemned;
• Extreme nationalism;
  
• There is intrinsic and irreconcilable difference between religion and science and people could choose one of the schools but not both;
• The different roles of man and woman played in the society are viewed as intrinsic difference of capacities which implies one is superior to another;
• The imbalance and conflict caused by extreme wealth and extreme poverty;
• The lack of basic education prevents certain group of people from being fully participating in social activities thus being viewed as inferior to others;
• Different career positions in society are viewed as an indicator of one’s social status, and those status are ranked hierarchically;
• Different languages create a barrier of communication thus cause misunderstanding between people of different regions;
• …

For each and every above listed situation or point of view there is corresponding teaching in Baha’i faith that either puts it in right perspective or provides a mean to amend it. If we view human collective life (society) as an organism like human body, all of these listed points of view or conditions could be viewed as diseases that have eaten into the vital part of our current society. And Baha’is believe that only a Messenger of God can provide remedies:

“The Prophets of God should be regarded as physicians whose task is to foster the well-being of the world and its peoples, that, through the spirit of oneness, they may heal the sickness of a divided humanity…they are the only ones who can claim to have understood the patient and to have correctly diagnosed its ailments. No man, however acute his perception, can ever hope to reach the heights which the wisdom and understanding of the Divine Physician have attained.”( Baha'u'llah)

Looking from another perspective, those obstacles in its essence are really misconceptions about the true reality (social and spiritual). The objective reality originated from an All-Powerful Force has its underlying structure and follows predetermined laws independent of what our subjective understanding of it. As great as human minds are, we are impotent to come up with a model that describes accurately all its aspects of this reality. We are forever, if we are humble enough to realize this, in need of guidance from our Creator to form an ever more accurate conception about who we are and how is human society supposed to be organized. I believe that not able to realize this needful human condition is the cause of most human sufferings: “The root cause of wrongdoing is ignorance.”  We are just like a stubborn kid, not knowing any better, but refused to listen. We act according to our malformed concepts of the reality. We stumble naturally, and cry out: “Why this happened to me?”

The following quote is one of my favorite:

“The Laws of God are not imposition of will, or of power, or pleasure, but the resolutions of truth, reason and justice.” (Abdu'l-Baha)

Posted via web from The Garden of Heart

The Principle of Oneness

Recently I have a precious chance to study with a friend one of the writings of Shoghi Effendi (the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith) “The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh”. The Guardian’s writings are beautiful and poetic, but sometimes are difficult for me to grasp. The help of friend makes it a bit easier to comprehend. I thoroughly enjoyed our study.

Perhaps, every Baha’i can tell something about the principle of oneness of mankind which is indeed the central theme of Bahá'u'lláh’s teachings. But I have never come to understand its deep implications as Guardian so well and frankly stated in the following quotes:

“Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind … is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cooperation among individual peoples and nations.”

So the oneness is neither merely brotherhood and good-well, nor just harmonious cooperation, as great as these may well be. What is it then?  Guardian continued:

“Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its influence.”

Again the Guardian clearly stated that the influence of this spiritual force will impact every aspects of the life of the society:

"It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society … It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world -- a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units."

This principle of oneness of mankind is not just an ideal appearing suddenly out of no where. It is really a continuous step within a long development process of human collective life:

“It represents the consummation of human evolution -- an evolution that has had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the institution of independent and sovereign nations.”

Do we have any options to choose whether to have or stop this final stage of human social development?  After reading the following quote, we better get prepared one way or another. Or even better to help along to build it:

“The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh, carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in establishing it.”

Individual Development within Social Milieu

Over the holiday season, I had chance to talk to my Chinese friends about the individual spiritual development and the influence of the social environment on this development. I feel it’s a good topic to discuss here about the reciprocal relationship between the development of individual and of society from Baha’i point view.

We have talked about in previous post that the development of spiritual capacities of human beings is, from Baha’i perspective, the ultimate and fundamental purpose of existence. But the process of this development is not strictly the business of an individual as some may tend to believe. Rather it is closely related and profoundly influenced by the social environment in which an individual lived. For one thing, the capacities (to learn, to love and to will) that we are called to develop itself are strongly socially oriented, and at least partially socially imposed.  For example, during our first 18 years of elementary learning period, we as individual, for the most part, really don’t have much to say what to learn. We are forced to learn whatever the society and our parents want us to learn. And after we grew up to be an independent learner, we will have to spend many more painful hours to clean up and sort out “the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge”.  In talking about the process of spiritual development, Dr William Hatcher stated in his paper “Human Nature and Human Society” that “the influence of society on the individual is far too pervasive and far too strong not to have a significant effect on such a process”, and “Baha’is consider that society is the God-intended matrix in which this eternal process of spiritual development begins. We hold that it is impossible for an individual to develop his or her spiritual capacities in abstraction from the process by which others are developing their spiritual capacities. In other words, it is through the creation of a just, unified, and progressive social order that spiritual capacities can best be developed."

I guess this statement has destroyed our last hope that we could go straight up to heaven all by ourselves and leave our fellow human brothers/sisters to hell to themselves. We are in this sinking boat together. We either all sink or all be saved. We don’t have another option but to help building a society that is most suitable for the spiritual development of all its members. The era of “独善其身” (to perfect oneself in solitude) is gone for ever.

Shoghi Effendi has made this point very clear in the following quotes:

“The whole object of our lives is bound up with the lives of all human beings; not a personal salvation we are seeking, but a universal one … Our aim is to produce a world civilization which will in turn react on the character of the individual. It is, in a way, the inverse of Christianity, which started with individual unit and through it reached out to the conglomerate life of man.”

And again:

“The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, whose supreme mission is none other but the achievement of this organic and spiritual unity of the whole body of nations, should, if we be faithful to its implications, be regarded as signalizing through its advent the coming of age of the entire human race. It should be viewed … as marking the last and highest stage in the stupendous evolution of man's collective life on this planet. The emergence of a world community, the consciousness of world citizenship, the founding of a world civilization and culture … should, by their very nature, be regarded, as far as this planetary life is concerned, as the furthermost limits in the organization of human society, though man, as an individual, will, nay must indeed as a result of such a consummation, continue indefinitely to progress and develop.”
 

Posted via email from The Garden of Heart