Faith the Integration of Consciousness

Arise and, armed with the power of faith, shatter to pieces the gods of your vain imaginings, the sowers of dissension amongst you.

(Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 217)

We closed last post on this note: “Now these historical forces while prompting a healthy search for meaning cannot provide it.  What can do it?  One Common Faith says: “…the accelerating breakdown in social order calls out desperately for the religious spirit to be freed from the shackles that have so far prevented it from bringing to bear the healing influence of which it is capable.”  That healing, like most healing, is best accomplished not through invasive surgeries and poisonous chemicals, but by properly adding more energy and life to an ailing body.  In this case it is the body of human thought and consciousness, desperately ill from a toxic ingestion of materialism.”

Human consciousness is in desperate need of a new birth of the religious spirit, not any reinvigoration of an established religion.  Though we are, as yet, far more aware of the growing dissension and splintering in consciousness than we are of the integrating effects of the Word, the religious spirit will not be denied, primarily because people cannot function effectively or for long without faith in something higher and greater than humanity, unless they let themselves be completely convinced of the materialist paradigm and thus be relieved of their anxieties.  

Let us recall, then, that the forces of dissension in consciousness, as in religion and, as we will see, in society, are released by a panicky, reactionary response to the emergence of a greater unity displacing established forms of unity.  The emergence of this new unity, present in the Revelations of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, is resisted by all those who are attached to the old form--attachment to the fashioning of the imagination makes an imagining into a "vain imagining."  Today, that greater unity in consciousness is the consciousness of the oneness of humankind.  Faith as the integrator of consciousness is also generated by adherence to this principle, even as it disintegrates lesser unities of consciousness such as nationalism, racism, sexism, and a host of other isms that divide and separate the one human family.  Baha’u’llah identifies exactly what these isms are: “gods of your vain imaginings”.  These gods are “the sowers of dissension amongst you.”

Other gods of vain imaginings in the materialist paradigm that sow dissension are: the false beliefs and assertions by human beings that they alone are in charge of their destiny; belief in the sovereignty of the individual mind; in the supreme authority of government; and the claim to have a monopoly on God propounded by sectarian religions.  Only the power of faith can shatter these imaginary gods—meaning they are like actual idols to be smashed—and faith should be put in the overarching principle of the oneness of God, the oneness of religion and the oneness of humanity.  Faith in these will integrate consciousness.  Faith, however, is a matter not of blind belief, but of conscious knowledge, and all the human and physical sciences are converging on the truth that humanity is one species.

But real faith is in two parts. The religious spirit must have a body of works that demonstrates its reality.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, “Faith is, first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.” (Bahá’í World Faith: 383)  Thus we demonstrate our faith in the oneness principle by creating private lives and collective societies characterized by a lack of prejudice, in equal opportunity for all in education and employment, in the care of all children, in the divine foundation of all religions, and the like.  The principal barriers to creating such lives and societies are ingrained ideas about human nature and what that nature is capable of achieving--gods fashioned by mere imaginings. 

The House of Justice noted: “Alas, notwithstanding the laudable efforts, in every land, of well-intentioned individuals working to improve circumstances in society, the obstacles preventing the realization of such vision seem insurmountable to many.  Their hopes founder on erroneous assumptions about human nature that so permeate the structures and traditions of much of present-day living as to have attained the status of established fact.  These assumptions appear to make no allowance for the extraordinary reservoir of spiritual potential available to any illumined soul who draws upon it; instead, they rely for justification on humanity’s failings, examples of which daily reinforce a common sense of despair.  A layered veil of false premises thus obscures a fundamental truth: The state of the world reflects a distortion of the human spirit, not its essential nature.” (The Universal House of Justice, Riḍván 2012)                  

Real faith generates moral conviction, and conviction, in turn, fuels and drives ethical action for positive social change.  By faith I mean what Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the Hebrews: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (King James Bible, The Book of Hebrews 11:1)  In a materialist order of belief and thought nothing is less substantial than faith in invisible reality, or faith in the prospect of peace, or faith that human nature can rise above self-interest.  Yet having faith that these things can be accomplished and made manifest through the moral conviction of what Buddhists would call “right action” is itself the evidence of their reality.  But that action must be more than some aggregate of individual ethical actions.  There must be collective moral action arising from a collective consciousness that releases a social dynamism for the world to change and transform its outlook and behavior.  That requires not only universal values but also moral leaders.

Bahá’u’lláh prophetically pointed out more than one hundred fifty years ago: “They that are possessed of wealth and invested with authority and power must show the profoundest regard for religion. In truth, religion is a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world, for the fear of God impelleth man to hold fast to that which is good, and shun all evil. Should the lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness and justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine. Unto this will bear witness every man of true understanding.” (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh: 125)

Obviously, the leaders of humanity, moral or otherwise, stupefied by their obsessive pursuit of material advantage, paid not the slightest heed to this warning.  Humanity persists in its blindness and continues in its adolescent willfulness, putting furious confidence in human will and thought, though less and less so as the damages pile up.  Sadly, it persists in its waywardness even though the answer has been given, the remedy of the new vision and divine Plan is being applied, and assurances of development are given to all who follow it.  Because of the heedlessness, blindness and willfulness, of the leaders of humanity, Shoghi Effendi stated: “Nothing but a fiery ordeal, out of which humanity will emerge, chastened and prepared, can succeed in implanting that sense of responsibility which the leaders of a new-born age must arise to shoulder.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 46)

Discussing the role of faith in generating moral conviction and positive social action takes us to an examination of the revolt against materialism from within society, the last, the outermost, the most tumultuous and chaotic, and the most visible level of the disintegration of the materialist order.