Revelation as Pattern: Building a New Order

Regard ye the world as a man’s body, which is afflicted with divers ailments, and the recovery of which dependeth upon the harmonizing of all of its component elements. Gather ye around that which We have prescribed unto you, and walk not in the ways of such as create dissension. Meditate on the world and the state of its people.

(Bahá’u’lláh. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 55-56)

While Spirit is transformative, in this world, at least, It needs a body through which to act effectively. The spiritual must also be substantial.  Without appearing in organic, social form, human understanding of Spirit is as some disembodied spectre the nature of which is subject to a host of conflicting imaginative interpretations, so that, eventually, Spirit means anything and nothing at all.  Though Bahá’u’lláh breathed the Spirit of His Revelation upon the whole of creation, still, for human community, Spirit must have a focus and a locus, a form identifiable as only Itself, and a pattern of  growth that follows organic laws fed by spiritual light.  This is the evolving Bahá’í community.  

Shoghi Effendi wrote: “Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh upon the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear His name, wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity with His laws.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 19)

The Bahá’i Community is rebuilding civilization from the ground up.  The call of God is both to the soul of the individual and to the spirit of humanity, and answering this call sets off a spiritual transformation that appears in the transformation of organic form.  Spiritualization of the individual begins with a fundamental change in self-consciousness from a center within himself to a center within divinity. Out from this new center flow different and new attitudes and behaviors demonstrating that a spiritual transformation is underway. 

However, transformed individuals are not sufficient by themselves, even in the aggregate, to effect the scale and speed of change needed for social advance to occur. Inner individual changes not outwardly supported by new patterns of collective behavior and through mediating institutions will eventually become as water in the sand.  If only a few are spiritually transformed, there is no appreciable seismic activity set off in the social landscape, though the dynamic force of example does have powerful effect.  But if larger numbers of people undergo transformation, and are united by institutions also operating on spiritual principles, then the larger society feels this impact and can undergo a transformation both in its nature and in its structure, which means one form disintegrates as another is built in its stead. 

In fact, until a new collective consciousness takes root and a new society is erected, the actions of such individuals actually ramp up the confusion in a system that is “lamentably defective”, because that system cannot assimilate the energy and patterns of behavior that flow from spiritual principles.  Rather, reactionary forces will attempt to crush these for the insurrection that they perceive them to be.  Consider this statement from Bahá’u’lláh on the integrative and disintegrative effects of a righteous act: “One righteous act is endowed with a potency that can so elevate the dust as to cause it to pass beyond the heaven of heavens. It can tear every bond asunder, and hath the power to restore the force that hath spent itself and vanished...” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 286)

Since its inception, setting in motion and coordinating processes of individual and social transformation has been at the heart of the Bahá’í counter-thrust to materialism, moving through a series of enlarging and interconnecting contexts that we can call: personal, institutional, and, now, moving into effective community action. 

The three enlarging social contexts capture the process of social transformation by spiritual means, each context linked to the others, creating a widening and upwardly evolving social force.  The House of Justice succinctly puts the process internal to the Bahá’i Community as: “Souls must be transformed, communities thereby consolidated, new models of life thus attained.” (The Universal House of Justice, A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 64-65.)   In another place they discussed the effects of the interaction of these three contexts of spiritual transformation on the broader community: “A Bahá'í community which is consistent in its fundamental life-giving, life sustaining activities will at its heart be serene and confident; it will resonate with spiritual dynamism, will exert irresistible influence, will set a new course in social evolution, enabling it to win the respect and eventually the allegiance of admirers and critics alike.” (Letter from the Universal House of Justice. Riḍván, 1984)

We can now undertake a discussion at the broadest level of analysis, namely, the entire globe. In a work of macro-social analysis, this is a natural enough direction to take, but we have this added reason:  “The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve—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. 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.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 42-43)

Linking the individual and the collective, i.e. humanity, to see how they are similarly affected and similarly respond to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is another example of spiritual causality which generates change everywhere at once.  Too, if the Bahá’i Administrative Order is the “pattern and nucleus” of a new order, then, to get some idea of how the Bahá’í community works internally is also to understand how the world can work, and to better grasp the interrelation that all-important dynamic between personal and social transformation.

Before we embark on this examination, it should be understood by all that this new world order, this new social form of governance that humanity will adapt itself to and which is the manifestation of spiritual forces, is not to be imposed upon the world, but, instead, demonstrated as one possible model of social organization and collective functioning.  That is, the Bahá’i Order is presented to the world as something that populations, their leaders and those serving on institutions, can observe, evaluate, incorporate, and build upon.  It is the wide-embrace, the strength and efficiency of that Order, the clarity of its principles and the nobility of its aims, and its ability to harmonize and advance human aspirations, which alone will win converts to its principles and processes from among the fair-minded among humankind.

Having said that, I should not fail to state that it is a remarkable social Order, possessing challenging features, exalted ethical ideals, and new principles of interaction, all expressive of a new conception of human nature and purpose that contrasts sharply with current notions of human nature, purpose and governance.   It is a Divine Economy.