Forces of Our Time (4)

Another major dark force Mr. Dunbar described in his book is the force of materialism. Starting with a quote of ‘Abdu’l-Baha lamenting the general eclipse of the light of God in society, ‘Abdu’l-Baha said:

“Alas! That humanity is completely submerged in imitations and unrealities, notwithstanding the truth of divine religion has ever remained the same. Superstitions have obscured the fundamental reality, the world is darkened … rites and dogmas are many and various; therefore discord has arisen among the religious systems whereas religion is for the unification of mankind. True religion is the source of love and agreement amongst men … but the people are holding to the counterfeit and imitation … Therefore the realm of the religionist has gradually narrowed and darkened and the sphere of the materialist has widened and advanced; for the religionist has held to imitation and counterfeit, neglecting and discarding holiness and the sacred reality of religion. When the sun sets it is the time for bats to fly. They come forth because they are creatures of the night. When the lights of religion become darkened the materialists appear. They are the bats of night. The decline of religion is their time of activity; they seek the shadows when the world is darkened and clouds have spread over it.”

Then Mr. Dunbar continued:

“

A great many of the widely-accepted theories and concepts of the world about us are fundamentally materialistic: they have gained popularity because their outlook is confined to man’s material existence and usually pander to selfish instincts. Often the appeal is made to one ethnic group, or racial group, or social class, to advance themselves at the expense of others. Sometimes it is just a general appeal to the egotistical tendencies of human beings… Such schemes and plans for the betterments of the human race attract people for a time but once they are tested their inadequacy becomes evident. They are dissolved, as Shoghi Effendi indicates, by the very forces that had given rise to them:

Springing from a finite mind, begotten of human fancy, and oftentimes the product of ill-conceived designs, such movements succeed, by reason of their novelty, their appeal to man's baser instincts and their dependence upon the resources of a sordid world, in dazzling for a time the eyes of men, only to plunge finally from the heights of their meteoric career into the darkness of oblivion, dissolved by the very forces that had assisted in their creation.

“

In the next paragraph, Mr. Dunbar put both communism and capitalism into one category, and said they are “twin sisters” because “their materialistic perception”. I found this a shock awakening, at least to people like me who grew up in communist country, who got tired and disappointed with that system and seeking out the capitalist country to bring hope for ourselves and our children and then realized, as Mr. Dunbar pointed out : “Neither one has created a just and prosperous society. Human beings are fundamentally spiritual and ideologies that do not acknowledge or draw on our spirituality ultimately bring out the basest dimensions of human nature. Both capitalist and communist ideologies have channeled human energy towards appeasing the appetites of the animal nature.”