(T)he happiness and greatness, the rank and
station, the pleasure and peace, of an individual have never consisted in his
personal wealth, but rather in his excellent character, his high resolve, the
breadth of his learning, and his ability to solve difficult problems.
(Abdu'l-Baha,
The Secret of Divine Civilization: 23)
In a spiritually-based economy, what I call the moral economy, material
wealth must of course be generated. But
we are not after material wealth per se.
We are after prosperity. Wealth
is absolutely essential for prosperity to mean anything but fine words, but material
wealth itself is not prosperity. Indeed Baha’u’llah wrote: “Know ye in truth
that wealth is a mighty barrier between the lover and his beloved... Well is it
then with him who, being rich, is not hindered by his riches from the eternal
Kingdom.” (The Hidden Words, Persian
#53)
Prosperity comes from combining of spiritual riches (virtues) with material
wealth. Wealth can be used to build
hospitals or bombs. But prosperity makes
one decision infinitely better than the other.
But in either case, wealth is like having a strong hammer to drive a
nail. Poverty is like having only your
hand to do it. The question is not,
then, to choose between a false dichotomy of either ethics or economics. The real question is: How is the ethical
economy established? That is why I am
putting forth what I am calling the ten virtues of prosperity. Last post discussed love and truthfulness. This post discusses trustworthiness and faith.
If we are lovingly caring for others, are cooperating with them, and are
truthful in all matters, we are demonstrating that we are trustworthy, that
others may repose their trust in us to take care of the poor in our midst who
are His trust. Trustworthiness is also
trusting that we will be cared for in ways which we may not know or understand,
that we will be fed by hidden celestial springs. In a phrase I discussed in a previous post (August 9, 2012), Shoghi
Effendi wrote: “To be continually giving out for the good of our fellows
undeterred by the fear of poverty and reliant on the unfailing bounty of the
Source of all wealth and all good – that is the secret of right living.” (Directives from the Guardian: 32).
So important is trustworthiness in
social and economic affairs that Bahá’u’lláh had a vision of trustworthiness
as: “one of the Beauties of the Most Sublime Paradise, standing on a pillar of
light, and calling aloud saying: “O inmates of earth and heaven! Behold ye My
beauty, and My radiance, and My revelation, and My effulgence. By God, the True
One! I am Trustworthiness and the revelation thereof, and the beauty thereof. I
will recompense whosoever will cleave unto Me, and recognize My rank and station,
and hold fast unto My hem. I am the most great ornament of the people of Baha,
and the vesture of glory unto all who are in the kingdom of creation. I am the
supreme instrument for the prosperity of the world, and the horizon of
assurance unto all beings.” (Tablets
of Baha’u’llah: 37) In another
tablet He wrote: “The goodliest vesture in the sight of God in this day is
trustworthiness. All bounty and honour shall be the portion of the soul that
arrayeth itself with this greatest of adornments.” (The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 327)
In another place He wrote: “We have enjoined upon all to become engaged
in some trade or profession, and have accounted such occupation to be an act of
worship. Before all else, however, thou shouldst receive, as a sign of God's
acceptance, the mantle of trustworthiness from the hands of divine favour; for
trustworthiness is the chief means of attracting confirmation and prosperity.” (The Compilation of Compilations vol II,
p. 335)
“Commerce,” He wrote in yet another
connection, “is as a heaven, whose sun is trustworthiness and whose moon is
truthfulness. The most precious of all things in the estimation of Him Who is
the Sovereign Truth is trustworthiness: thus hath it been recorded in the
sacred Scroll of God. Entreat ye the one true God to enable all mankind to
attain to this most noble and lofty station.” (The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 335-336) Nothing more need be said about this virtue
than what Bahá’u’lláh wrote.
Faith is the greatest creative power in the human reality. It is an intrinsic impulse of the human
spirit. The power of faith was summed up
by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He said: “Nothing shall be impossible to you if you have
faith. As ye have faith so shall your powers and blessings be.” (Bahiyyih Khanum: 225) Much of the hopelessness present today is
really a lack of faith. Of course, there
is good reason to put no faith in failing systems and institutions and
untrustworthy people. But the general lack
of faith comes from the breakdown of trust, in oneself, in others and in
institutions, because more and more relationships and systems no longer
work. In relation to prosperity, should
we have real faith we would believe that: “The Spirit breathing through the
Holy Scriptures is food for all who hunger. God Who has given the revelation to
His Prophets will surely give of His abundance daily bread to all those who ask
Him faithfully.” (Paris Talks:57) To ask faithfully doesn’t mean to put in your sincere request to the divine food bank and passively wait for a magical cornucopia to open. It means to work hard toward a
necessary or noble goal, all the while believing that divine assistance is
aiding you in your quest.
Many recoil from belief in invisible
power and say: “Seeing is believing.”
They mean by this little gnome of supposed insight that wisdom is to be
skeptical of anything that can’t be seen with the physical eye. But actually the opposite is true. Real faith is never blind belief, or belief in
something we cannot relate to. The
Biblical statement of the correct attitude is Jesus declaration: “What things soever
ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (The
Book of Mark 11:24) Jesus is saying
look into the world of vision, perceive with your spiritual eye, as He did, and
believe that what you perceive there is real and can be manifested.
So many don’t really believe what they mentally envision, calling it “just imagination” or "only a dream."
This is doubt speaking and the lower form of faith is doubt. We often lose heart and feel doubt when
pursuing a dream because we encounter obstacles or resistance. This, too, is a form of poverty thinking (See the November 4, 2012 post) that can
become a self-fulfilling belief. Doubt
has an impoverishing effect, for we are actually saying that we don’t believe
in the reality of spirit. Thus what we
desire from that realm will never manifest. But to believe that you have received before you have actually received, as Christ said, means that you must mentally make a place in your life for the desired reality. If you are not prepared for it you are
actually strengthening doubt not belief. In this case, doubt will increase, faith will
decrease, and you are ensnared in a self-fulfilling prophecy of hopelessness and despair.
A direct link to my book, Renewing the Sacred, is http://tinyurl.com/cndew5a. It is now also in Kindle.
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