A Necessary Distinction

No sooner had that Revelation been unveiled to men's eyes than the signs of universal discord appeared among the peoples of the world, and commotion seized the dwellers of earth and heaven, and the foundations of all things were shaken. The forces of dissension were released, the meaning of the Word was unfolded, and every several atom in all created things acquired its own distinct and separate character. Hell was made to blaze, and the delights of Paradise were uncovered to men's eyes.

(Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh: 296)

If we want to understand the difference between the efforts of the Bahá’i community to transform society and those of other progressive groups, an important distinction must be made.  The forces of dissension, the signs of universal discord and the commotion that are released with the coming of the Báb’s and Bahá’u’lláh’s  Revelations are not just all those clashes between angry protesters striving against entrenched oppressive powers that have been part of human history since the nineteenth century, such as those of the year 1848.  Dissension, discord and commotion are also generated by “positive” searches and progressive movements for a new meaningful order of human society.  Both protest and search have become global, as we read, yet they form but a disorganized conglomeration of movements. 

The reason that even positive movements for change originating within the old order become part of the forces of dissension is that taken together these movements lack any coordinating principle, supreme authority, universal value system, or comprehensive vision and plan that encompasses them.  Thus, they eventually begin competing with each other for influence and this makes them serve destructive ends.  They may be inspired by divine energy, but they lack the divine plan.  They receive the energy, but cannot effectively channel it for long or for enough people. 

Releasing the forces of dissension, then, is both the release of the anarchic forces of the lower nature and what happens when the tensions within the body politic, held together, in the absence of true religion, by a viscous bond of law, shared beliefs, common customs, and police patrols, are dissolved.  It is not Revelation that releases them from their latency; rather they release themselves from all constraint through the power—though they know not the Source—of His revelation.

From a larger and longer perspective, discord, tumult, and internal dissent are necessary to the process of social advance into a new social form.  Their role is to clear away the clotted bureaucracies, to dissolve the knots of prejudice and repression, to pry off the icy grip of entrenched power, so that new growth may happen.  Thus whatever disruptive influence they have is part of a larger process of greater integration.   

Shoghi Effendi explains: “The convulsions of this transitional and most turbulent period in the annals of humanity are the essential prerequisites, and herald the inevitable approach, of that Age of Ages, "the time of the end," in which the folly and tumult of strife that has, since the dawn of history, blackened the annals of mankind, will have been finally transmuted into the wisdom and the tranquility of an undisturbed, a universal, and lasting peace, in which the discord and separation of the children of men will have given way to the worldwide reconciliation, and the complete unification of the divers elements that constitute human society.” (The Promised Day is Come: 117)

Yet humanity cannot, unaided, fix the problems and challenges that it faces—perhaps because of a principle articulated by Einstein, namely, that problems cannot be solved using the same mentality that generated them. 

In 1931, in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, Shoghi Effendi summarized the impotence of human efforts: “Humanity, whether viewed in the light of man's individual conduct or in the existing relationships between organized communities and nations, has, alas, strayed too far and suffered too great a decline to be redeemed through the unaided efforts of the best among its recognized rulers and statesmen—however disinterested their motives, however concerted their action, however unsparing in their zeal and devotion to its cause. No scheme which the calculations of the highest statesmanship may yet devise; no doctrine which the most distinguished exponents of economic theory may hope to advance; no principle which the most ardent of moralists may strive to inculcate, can provide, in the last resort, adequate foundations upon which the future of a distracted world can be built. No appeal for mutual tolerance which the worldly-wise might raise, however compelling and insistent, can calm its passions or help restore its vigor. Nor would any general scheme of mere organized international cooperation, in whatever sphere of human activity, however ingenious in conception, or extensive in scope, succeed in removing the root cause of the evil that has so rudely upset the equilibrium of present-day society. Not even, I venture to assert, would the very act of devising the machinery required for the political and economic unification of the world—a principle that has been increasingly advocated in recent times—provide in itself the antidote against the poison that is steadily undermining the vigor of organized peoples and nations. What else, might we not confidently affirm, but the unreserved acceptance of the Divine Program enunciated, with such simplicity and force as far back as sixty years ago, by Bahá'u'lláh, embodying in its essentials God's divinely appointed scheme for the unification of mankind in this age, coupled with an indomitable conviction in the unfailing efficacy of each and all of its provisions, is eventually capable of withstanding the forces of internal disintegration which, if unchecked, must needs continue to eat into the vitals of a despairing society. It is towards this goal—the goal of a new World Order, Divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, equitable in principle, challenging in its features—that a harassed humanity must strive…. Is it not a fact—and this is the central idea I desire to emphasize—that the fundamental cause of this world unrest is attributable, not so much to the consequences of what must sooner or later come to be regarded as a transitory dislocation in the affairs of a continually changing world, but rather to the failure of those into whose   committed, to adjust their system of economic and political institutions to the imperative needs of a rapidly evolving age? Are not these intermittent crises that convulse present-day society due primarily to the lamentable inability of the world's recognized leaders to read aright the signs of the times, to rid themselves once for all of their preconceived ideas and fettering creeds, and to reshape the machinery of their respective governments according to those standards that are implicit in Bahá'u'lláh's supreme declaration of the Oneness of Mankind—the chief and distinguishing feature of the Faith He proclaimed?” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 33-34)

The revolts against materialism going on at three distinct levels within the world are generated by the spiritually energizing and socially organizing force of Revelation.  The materialist order cannot assimilate this new Power, for Revelation is not just energy but also new social and moral pattern. Under the impact.of both divine energy and pattern the established order buckles, then crumbles.   That progressive movements in thought and society contribute to the advance of human consciousness and society is certainly true. Yet, in my opinion, the best that these movements can accomplish is the building of the last stage of advance of the human order: certainly a good thing.  But they cannot build a divine order, and it is the divine order that is required today.

Hence, while what they do is good, it is not good enough to effect the necessary transformation in thought and action.  So long as they remain within the consciousness of the prevailing order and attempt to reform that order from within it, they must, to some degree, oppose and contend with other groups searching for solutions, with the established powers of the old and dying order, and with the Bahá’í community.

The Revolt Within Society

Among the results of the manifestation of spiritual forces will be that the human world will adapt itself to a new social form, the justice of God will become manifest throughout human affairs, and human equality will be universally established.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 131)

The signs that the energies of Revelation are diffusing through society are two: unifying movements slowly growing in power and influence, but discord, commotion and dissension spreading more quickly.  Internal disintegration characterizes ever more areas of society, institutions falter then fall, new movements, politically and economically separatist, religiously sectarian, culturally divided from the mainstream, appear with greater frequency.  Over time, disintegration not only spreads, but accelerates, the world becomes more complicated and strife torn, divided and anarchical, increasing in speed and destructive power with every passing decade. Every year fewer things work.   While most of this upheaval is the commotion characteristic of a disintegrating order, some of it is the result of unifying efforts to bring humanity into a new social order that are resisted by the remaining strongest sectors of the passing order.

The new and larger social unity being established is a global civilization that embraces all humanity as one family, for the fundamental purpose of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh is the realization of not only the spiritual unity of humanity, but also the organic unity of the entire human race.  This world civilization can only be founded upon a consciousness of the oneness of humanity, which is, in turn, grounded in the universal Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.  “In the Bahá'í view, the oneness of humankind represents an organic interdependence within a corporeal social entity. This implies that the welfare of the constituent components of this body is inextricably interwoven with that of the whole. Moreover, the essential oneness of the human race is not restricted to the physical dimension; it extends to the social and spiritual aspects of human life. Through the nurturing and unfolding of man's transcendental potential, cultural diversity can begin to be viewed as the expression of this universal and basic truth.” (Bahá’í International Community, 1990 Jan 26, Combating Racism) 

As I have been arguing, the emergence of this new and larger unity itself provokes dissension, tumult and commotion in the established order, which is a unity of less complexity, order, and coherence.  While all sovereign nations have political and economic challenges and problems to work out between themselves bi-laterally or multi-laterally, all lands and peoples are challenged by the God-given goal of uniting within one social unity founded upon the principle of the oneness of the human race, for this means, among any other things, the abolition of all forms of prejudice, equal opportunity in education and employment for all regardless of race, class, ethnicity, gender or nationality, the just distribution of the world’s wealth, the protection of civil rights, the promulgation of universal human rights, and more, and all on a global scale. To reach this is not just a matter of vision, moral idealism, good planning and hard work. Shoghi Effendi believed: “That nothing short of the fire of a severe ordeal, unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse and weld the discordant entities that constitute the elements of present-day civilization, into the integral components of the world commonwealth of the future, is a truth which future events will increasingly demonstrate.” (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 46)

At their end stage, “the signs of universal discord” that appear “among the peoples of the world,” and the “commotion” which seizes “the dwellers of earth and heaven” become more powerful than any force for unity except that generated by Revelation.  But Revelation does not come into the world to save the old one, but to build a new one, and a new world is what is required from humanity.  This is hard to discern amid the welter of conflicting passions and movements, some of which are very progressive.  How is humanity to form into a new social unity? 

That question is both separate and inseparable from the questions of religion and consciousness, which are the other two revolts against materialism.  In essence it is all one revolt. But in manifestation it is many revolts going on at the metaphysical, mental, and material levels, each of these levels experiencing their own manifold internal struggles and changes.  Social advance is separate because integration and disintegration are going on socially without any awareness on the part of most people of the origin of the new spirit of religion that is, in my view, generating global ferment.  Yet, all these movements, upheavals and changes, are inseparable just because they are the myriad effects of and varied human responses to the workings of the same sovereign Power and Will.  And, it is in the social dimension that the actual workings of the Spirit can be observed most clearly: more clearly than in religion, where a materialistic world dismisses it outright as either a metaphysical conceit or merely another social force, or in consciousness, where all vision can be thought to originate with humans themselves.  But socially, the pattern and nucleus of a new unity is actually present and manifest for all to see.

Exploring the process of humanity’s social advance will take us alternately and often back and forth between the inside of society to examine the confusion and discern some differences in movements and outside humanity to gain some objective overview of the tumult of transformation.

This double vision is necessary to gain a spiritual perspective which is both penetrating and encompassing.  Remember, Bahá’u’lláh’s characterization of the existing order as “lamentably defective” did not mean that it was totally so.  Much good remained, but what was good could not be saved and also have that order continue. Neither could the good be surgically separated out and saved. Humanity had to transform to save what was good.   The lamentable defect of the materialist order always was, in my opinion, the lack of a transcendent, spiritual dimension to its life and thought due to the decline of true religion.  Thus, it had no means of animating, coordinating and grounding its collective moral life, leading to barbarism, confusion, chaos, and rising levels of violence.  Thus, we must see things not only in their immanent changing state, but also as moving toward a socially transcendent goal.  

  

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.

Forces of Dissension in Consciousness

The world is in great turmoil, and the minds of its people are in a state of utter confusion. We entreat the Almighty that He may graciously illuminate them with the glory of His Justice, and enable them to discover that which will be profitable unto them at all times and under all conditions.

(Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 97-98)

I discussed the growth to maturity of the moral seeds of destruction planted at the very outset of the materialist era, so, logically, as the Universal House of Justice document, One Common Faith, puts it, the revolt against materialism is “the product of historical forces that steadily gather momentum.” (One Common Faith: 8)  As the forces of disunity gather momentum within society, they become the outer, often violent, markings of a progressive inner collapse of materialism.  In consciousness, these are the phases of breaking free from the illusion of the materialist interpretation of reality.  In the unprecedented change of human consciousness now occurring, these forces represent some of the final negative conclusions of the materialist paradigm: conclusions inherent to an ideology with an “inherently deficient moral code”, a lack of global social vision, and a rebellious, adolescent ambition to replace God and religion with humanity and reason that is rapidly running out of credibility, money, and police power: moral seeds of destruction grown into forces of dissension in consciousness.

One Common Faith names four such forces, each is global, each is both a real threat to the authority of materialism and a real manifestation of a renewed and universal search for meaning and purpose in life.  Together the four forces are an example of one part of the two-fold process that is working “in its own way and with an accelerated momentum, to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face of our planet.”

The first is the bankruptcy of the ideology of materialism itself as a program of social and economic development in any of its discredited forms—capitalist, communist, liberal democratic, or as consumer culture.   The loss of the ruling assumptions and principles of any dominant ideology, or “world faith”, sets loose latent forces of dissension and anarchy that it has kept more or less under control.  This is a serious loss for an ideology that had “consolidated itself so completely as to become the dominant world faith insofar as the direction of society was concerned.” 

The result of this is a widespread revival of spiritual search, a seeking for meaning and the experience of transcendence.  This goes on because the human soul REQUIRES inspiration and transcendence.  As the Christian Book of Proverbs says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (The Book of Proverbs 29:18) The House of Justice’s modern day version of that principle is: “The endowments which distinguish the human race from all other forms of life are summed up in what is known as the human spirit; the mind is its essential quality. These endowments have enabled humanity to build civilizations and to prosper materially. But such accomplishments alone have never satisfied the human spirit, whose mysterious nature inclines it towards transcendence, a reaching towards an invisible realm, towards the ultimate reality, that unknowable essence of essences called God.” (The Promise of World Peace: 1)  Without doubt a congeries of movements seeking for something larger than current reality is going on.

But this groping, unguided, promiscuous search has its own perils.  Psychologist, William James, said of this omni-directional spiritual search:  “All that the facts require is that the power should be both other and larger than our conscious selves.  Anything larger will do, if only it be large enough to trust for the next step.  It need not be infinite, it need not be solitary.  It might conceivably even be only a larger and more godlike self, of which the present self would then be but the mutilated expression, and the universe might conceivably be a collection of such selves, of different degrees of inclusiveness, with no absolute unity realized in it at all.” (The Varieties of Religious Experience: Postscript)  Thus there are plenty of chances to be lead astray subjectively, to be overwhelmed by emotion, to mistake a sudden inflation of our own ego for the voice of God, to be allured by the will-o-the-wisp of some transitory inspiration, and to name self-deception of self-interest moral principle.

The second of these historical forces they name global integration, the throwing together of whole populations that heretofore have had little or nothing to do with each other.  This takes place through migrations, through refugees fleeing wars and natural disasters, through international travel, but most importantly, through general access to information via computers, social media and the internet.  It is the accessing and digesting of new information that enables disempowered peoples to call into question the legitimacy of established authority and empowers them to action.  In a world racked by convulsions and battered by contention everywhere, upheaval, especially mental upheaval, “excites a search for meaning.” (One Common Faith: 12)  Again we are in the realm of consciousness changing.

The third force is the failure of religious communities, specifically their leadership, to get beyond entrenched ways of thought and hidebound systems of belief.  This mental lockjaw condemns the intelligence to a level and form of consciousness that no longer provides any social guidance in today’s world, for it cannot adequately interpret today’s emerging reality.  This failure to progress with the times breeds within religion an arrogant, reactionary spirit of intolerance, prejudice and self-preservation, as we have already discussed.  Such believers may be sincere in their belief, but they are sincerely out of touch with emerging reality, and this exacts terrible consequences on the mind and heart.

For many faith communities the challenge of achieving the positive change they long for is that: “Although retaining its central role in consciousness, faith appeared impotent to influence the course of events.” (One Common Faith: 5)  Perhaps the reason for this impotence is that, since materialism was a successful revolt against moribund religion, this means that, except for a few stalwart believers, real faith and moral conviction cannot be found in any of the religions which materialism conquered.  Today, the religions have either bought into, or been overwhelmed by secular notions, which is the last face and form of their own distortion.  The failure of religious communities, specifically their leadership, to get beyond entrenched ways of thought and manufactured systems of belief has made traditional religion unable to embrace consciousness and impel its development.  The world moved on, leaving religion behind.  

The fourth force to reawaken spiritual interest is a fundamental “misconception about both human nature and social evolution.” (One Common Faith: 8)  The document reviews several of these and concludes that: “What all such differing conceptions have in common is the extent to which a phenomenon that is acknowledged to completely transcend human reach has nevertheless gradually been imprisoned within conceptual limits whether organizational, theological, experiential or ritualistic—of human invention.” (One Common Faith: 19)  Human religion, which is not the teachings of God, but the organized social expression and human rational interpretation of the divine teachings, has become one of the pillars of a materialistic interpretation and, consequently, revolt against established religion is also a revolt against materialism.

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.” (One Common Faith: iii)  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.

Science: An Effulgence of the Sun of Truth

Unveiled and unconcealed, this Wronged One hath, at all times, proclaimed before the face of all the peoples of the world that which will serve as the key for unlocking the doors of sciences, of arts, of knowledge, of well-being, of prosperity and wealth.

(Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh: 96)

We are exploring some implications in the House of Justice statement that: “For the majority of the earth’s people, the scriptures of each of these systems of belief have served, in Bahá’u’lláh’s words, as “the city of God”, a source of knowledge that totally embraces consciousness, one so compelling as to endow the sincere with “a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind.”  We have discussed religion, but closed last post with the question: What about science?”

While the Bahá’í Writings consistently make religion the power behind humanity’s intellectual development, by religion, again, is meant the creative Word of God.  But also, as a consciousness, true religion is the re-ligia or Straight Path of reunion and reconnection with God, and reunion with God is the real purpose behind all learning, according to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.  “Every branch of learning, conjoined with the love of God, is approved and worthy of praise; but bereft of His love, learning is barren—indeed, it bringeth on madness. Every kind of knowledge, every science, is as a tree: if the fruit of it be the love of God, then is it a blessed tree, but if not, that tree is but dried-up wood, and shall only feed the fire.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 181)

Religion as the emotional encounter and rational interpretation of Revelation is merely another knowledge grown out from that Root, often leading the mind and heart away from the Straight path.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, for example, stated: “The holy, divine Manifestations did not reveal themselves for the purpose of founding a nation, sect or faction. They did not appear in order that a certain number might acknowledge Their Prophethood. They did not declare Their heavenly mission and message in order to lay the foundation for a religious belief. Even Christ did not become manifest that we should merely believe in Him as the Christ, follow Him and adore His mention. All these are limited in scope and requirement, whereas the reality of Christ is an unlimited essence. The infinite and unlimited Reality cannot be bounded by any limitation. Nay, rather, Christ appeared in order to illumine the world of humanity, to render the earthly world celestial, to make the human kingdom a realm of angels, to unite the hearts, to enkindle the light of love in human souls, so that such souls might become independent, attaining complete unity and fellowship, turning to God, entering into the divine Kingdom, receiving the bounties and bestowals of God and partaking of the manna from heaven.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 442-443)

Epistemologically, the Messages of these Luminaries surround and operate through both religion and science, the two great systems of human knowledge, and also impel their development.  Religion and science, in turn, act, or should act, as complementary intellectual knowledge systems that mutually reinforce and mutually define each other’s role.  The House of Justice sets the stage for understanding this: “While it is true to speak of the unity of all religions, understanding the context is vital.  At the deepest level, as Bahá’u’lláh emphasizes, there is but one religion.  Religion is religion, as science is science.  The one discerns and articulates the values unfolding progressively through Divine revelation; the other is the instrument through which the human mind explores and is able to exert its influence ever more precisely over the phenomenal world.  The one defines goals that serve the evolutionary process; the other assists in their attainment.  Together, they constitute the dual knowledge system impelling the advance of civilization.  Each is hailed by the Master as an ‘effulgence of the Sun of Truth.’”(One Common Faith: 33)   Religion and science are complementary knowledge systems, because each is an effulgence of God generated by His revealed Word, as our opening quote from Bahá’u’lláh is meant to indicate.  One without the other is a crippling hindrance to a full exploration of Reality. In a common metaphor used in the Bahá’i Writings, it is like a bird attempting to fly with only one wing.

From this view, without progressive Revelation there can be neither progressive religion nor advancing science; the first brought to a halt by imitations, the second undermined by its lack of moral values, whatever its epistemological ones may be.  Without religion and science, civilization cannot progress properly, but, rather, is undermined by barbarism.  Too, when religion slides into imitation and superstition, its leaders denying the new Revelation and their flocks slavishly following them, then humanity can neither properly discern nor adequately articulate “the values unfolding progressively through Divine revelation.” Without a robust religion, humanity is left with only science, “the instrument through which the human mind explores and is able to exert its influence ever more precisely over the phenomenal world”, and this is a loss of transcendence and knowledge of human nature, though an exponential increase in our knowledge of the phenomenal world may happen.  Also, without true religion humanity cannot clearly “define goals that serve the evolutionary process” but becomes either trapped in a time warp of values, tangled in a confusing web of rational theories, or buried under an avalanche of facts and contrary opinions.  Without clarity and articulation of these goals, science’s power to “assist” in their realization is left without moral guidance.  For science to try to morally articulate and clarify these goals on its own leads to the kind of results graphically pictured in mushroom clouds towering above Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Whatever influence this supernatural Power of Revelation may have wielded over human consciousness in past dispensations, in every case till now It gradually became encrusted and weighed down with imitations which became limitations that benefitted, first, a ruling ecclesiastical class, then a ruling secular one, and today a scientific priesthood jealously guarding the borders of “true” knowledge.  As a result, human consciousness of reality is less than it should have been and, consequently, the scope of human accomplishments is less than it could have been.  The House of Justice noted: “While nothing could prevent the creative power of Divine intervention from continuing its work of progressively raising consciousness, the scope of what could be achieved, in any age, became increasingly limited by such artificially contrived obstacles.” (One Common Faith: 28)

The Revolt Within Consciousness

The principle cause of spiritual astigmatism is a perilous misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of religion, and the consequent underdevelopment of spiritual faculties.  Recall the Masters statement of why this is so: “When materialists subject imitations to the intellectual analysis of reason, they find them to be mere superstitions; therefore, they deny religion.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace:161)  That is, having demolished the straw man of religion, materialists believe they have proven religion’s uselessness. 

When we attempt to discuss something as complex and elusive as the influence of Revelation upon human consciousness, we must first put some definition on it.  We do this not by fixing it in the amber of some concept, like a dead insect.  Neither do we do it by arguing over causes.  Rather, it is done by noticing effects.  As Christ said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” 

Yet, the effects of Revelation on human consciousness and morality are difficult to measure and track, since there is no agreed upon definition of human consciousness.  A materialist theory of consciousness says consciousness is an epiphenomenon, a product of chemical and neuronal processes of the brain, something that ends when these processes do.  But for others, like myself, consciousness is not just eternal but also causal.  By causal I do not mean efficient causality, which is science, but formal cause, that mental cause that causes the unfolding of potentiality into actuality.  Thinking only in terms of efficient cause will preclude the possibility of knowing formal cause.  To grasp something of formal cause, we notice not specific effects, but rather an environment of them by, so to speak, trying to connect the dots of specific events.  We are not just probing to find a general disequilibrium of consciousness itself, but also its re-equilibrium on a new basis and foundation.  We are on the lookout for a “sea-change”.

Revelation as spiritual cause—which precedes even organic formal cause which is the first material form of spirit: i.e. the pattern and nucleus—is the template and sacred code of development of the Word, the Source and progenitor of all forces for newness and renewal in the world, the power that generates an urge for progress and provokes positive changes in the heart.  That is a statement of faith, but faith is central to human consciousness, though not in the usual way.  While science and efficient cause thinking says “seeing is believing”, faith and formal cause thought says something like “believing is seeing”.  These formal cause relationships between the spiritual and the material—efficient cause is relations within the material world—are the origin and, I believe, the essential meaning behind the Biblical phrases of “on earth as it is in heaven” and “man is made in the image and after the likeness” of the Manifestation, and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement: “The spiritual world is like unto the phenomenal world. They are the exact counterpart of each other. Whatever objects appear in this world of existence are the outer pictures of the world of heaven.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace:9)

Religion as the Word of God shapes itself, as it develops, from within Itself which is also the midmost heart of creation.  Revealed religion comes from a Reality beyond the reach of human understanding.  Religion as the authentic human encounter with that Word is the most primitive experience of the race, the ineradicable wildness of the human soul in what is both most dangerous and most valuable within us.  It grows out from the center of being in deep resonant pulsations that percolate up within the religious enthusiast and pour forth in the expressions of his or her enthusiasm.  It is the root human experience, out from which spring collectively new thoughts and feelings, new knowledge and morality that gradually birth new social laws, structures and processes in that social evolutionary process we call building civilization.  The great civilizations, absent the modern western one, have been the organic historical fruits of the great Revelations. 

I have said that the spiritual impetus driving the revolt against materialism in each of the spheres that we are examining is the propagation of a new and larger unity.  One of the effects of the emergence of this larger spiritual unity is the release of powerful forces of dissension, tumult and commotion in the organic unity being replaced.  The unifying Word of God, however, generates disunity not only among the religions, but throughout the human and creational orders.  Bahá’u’lláh says, for example: “Verily, We have caused every soul to expire by virtue of Our irresistible and all-subduing sovereignty. We have, then, called into being a new creation, as a token of Our grace unto men.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh:29-30)

In human consciousness the new unity generated by the Revelation of Baha’u’llah is the consciousness of the oneness of humanity.  Two statements from ‘Abdu’l-Baha will suffice: “In every century a particular and central theme is, in accordance with the requirements of that century, confirmed by God. In this illumined age that which is confirmed is the oneness of the world of humanity.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: 113)  And: "In every Dispensation the light of Divine Guidance has been focussed upon one central theme.... In this wondrous Revelation, this glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God and the distinguishing feature of His Law is the consciousness of the Oneness of Mankind." (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: 36)

In terms of Revelation’s effect on human knowledge, the House of Justice wrote: “For the majority of the earth’s people, the scriptures of each of these systems of belief have served, in Bahá’u’lláh’s words, as ‘the city of God’, a source of knowledge that totally embraces consciousness, one so compelling as to endow the sincere with “a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind.” (Universal House of Justice, One Common Faith: 13-14) 

Let us hold our attention for a moment on the phrase “a source of knowledge that totally embraces consciousness.”   There are two points to consider in this phrase in light of the admonition expressed by the House of Justice that for Bahá’ís to answer the needs of today they must draw upon a deep understanding of humanity’s spiritual evolution.  First, the phrase does not say that scripture, the revealed Word of God, the Revelation of Divinity, is any body of knowledge, but is, rather, “a source of knowledge” and it is this source of knowledge “that totally embraces consciousness”, and not any particular knowledge or system of belief which grows from that source. In regards to Revelation as the source of human knowledge Bahá’u’lláh Himself states: “Unveiled and unconcealed, this Wronged One hath, at all times, proclaimed before the face of all the peoples of the world that which will serve as the key for unlocking the doors of sciences, of arts, of knowledge, of well-being, of prosperity and wealth.” (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh: 96) 

An authentic encounter with this source of knowledge is so compelling “as to endow the sincere with “a new eye, a new ear, and a new mind.”   Those without this transforming experience can, at best, but dimly perceive the power, glory and beauty of Revelation.  This, again, is the legacy of materialism.

The second consideration leads directly to the other and equally central aspect of the development of human consciousness, especially as it regards the faith of Bahá’u’lláh, but, also, by analogy, to the Revelations of all previous Manifestations.  That is: “Bahá’u’lláh has not brought into existence a new religion to stand beside the present multiplicity of sectarian organizations.  Rather has he recast the whole conception of religion as the principal force impelling the development of human consciousness.” (One Common Faith: 23)  Impel means to drive or urge forward, cause to move forward, propel, incite or constrain to action, impart motion to.  The power of the Word of God to both totally embrace human consciousness and to be the principal force impelling its development are twin foundational aspects, the spiritual causality driving humanity’s spiritual evolution in consciousness. That’s quite a claim to make, and few today would take such a claim seriously, for it begs the obvious question: What about science? 

We’ll discuss that in the next post.

Dogma Eat Dogma

I said that each of the three integrating movements (i.e. in religion, in human consciousness, and in society) also creates disintegration and dissension on their level.  Thus, even the unifying universal of the all-encompassing Word of God generates disunity among the religions, as each feels threatened by the authority of the new Word and counter-asserts that it alone has a monopoly on religious truth.  This reaction, too, gets confounded, because dogmatic materialism provokes the same revolt from established religion as centuries ago religion provoked from it, namely, a dogmatic one.   Religion’s spiritual revolt against materialism reverses the original reversal, for materialism, in a real sense, reversed religion’s hold on consciousness and the direction of society.  Actually it absorbed it and made it over into one of its strongest pillars.  In the “west”, especially, the religions themselves have bought into materialism’s distortion of human nature and purpose played out in a secular perspective.  As the document The Prosperity of Humankind puts it: “Burdened by traditions of paternalism, prevailing religious thought seems incapable of translating an expressed faith in the spiritual dimensions of human nature into confidence in humanity's collective capacity to transcend material conditions.” (Bahá’í International Community, 1995 Mar 03, The Prosperity of Humankind. p.1)  But for others there remains a smoldering, burning in their soul that flames up ever more violently.

The violent revolt within religion between faiths is also against materialism as a false faith.  This is the frontal attack upon materialism from the blind fury of fanatical religionists, though often conceived, somewhat legitimately, as against the western way of life.  While materialism is a flame that devours society—Shoghi Effendi calling it “the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men”—the flame of fanatical religious belief is worse, for it immolates the soul in its own ego desires, and only God can cool this liquid fire.  “Religious fanaticism and hatred,” wrote Bahá’u’lláh, “are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction....” (Gleanings: 288)

We have only to cast a glance at the headlines to see the truth of His assertion today—e.g. 9/11.  But religious fanaticism is allowed to grow when true religion is lost and the manipulation of lower emotions and passions by religious leaders is taken to be religious training.  Indeed, one of the outstanding social phenomena of our time, one that threatens to devour the whole world, is a world-wide resurgence of fanatical religious fervor and intolerance.  Religious fanaticism breeds hatred and violence, engenders civil strife, promotes terror, and increases manifold human suffering, not only between religious communities but also entire nations.  Its pernicious influence can be found at the root of all too many of the wars, conflicts and other ills undermining peace in the world.

Bahá’u’lláh identified the source of this spiritual perversion when He wrote to the divines of His day: "O ye the dawning-places of knowledge!  Beware that ye suffer not yourselves to become changed, for as ye change, most men will, likewise, change. This, verily, is an injustice unto yourselves and unto others.... Ye are even as a spring. If it be changed, so will the streams that branch out from it be changed.  Fear God, and be numbered with the godly.” (Quoted by Shoghi Effendi in The Promised Day is Come:83)

Fanaticism is contrary to the humane teachings brought by the Founders of all the great religions and is directly responsible for the atrocities committed in the name of those same religions.  The violence and disruption associated with religious fanaticism testifies to its spiritual emptiness. Fanaticism destroys the very foundations of human solidarity by dividing the world into contending factions, each believing itself to be superior to others and to have an exclusive claim on religious truth. These actions and attitudes negate the very purpose of religion.

But if all is in a state of maturity, though we might better call religion in a state of senility, then today’s fanatical expressions represent the dying convulsions of doctrines and societies which have openly defied the altruistic teachings of their own faiths.  This is the mind-deadening outcome of imitations creeping into the practice and beliefs of religion.  And when there is no longer any true religion it opens the gates for artificial faiths to make their appearance and usurp the throne of religion located in the heart.  And religion fallen into imitation opens the way for the infection of materialism to gain entry, then move through the body politic to kill the soul.

A lasting solution to our political and economic problems can only be achieved if something is first done to bridge the spiritual gap existing between the followers of the major faiths.  The only way to quiet this inner flame of religious intolerance and fanaticism is through a new outpouring of the religious spirit that unifies the religions.  This is the universal Revelation which will at once reconcile the basic contradictions in major religious beliefs, be consistent with modern scientific and rational principles, and offer to all the people values and a meaning to life that they can accept and apply.

There can be no power of change and development until a new spirit animates religion, one that not just comprehends the realities of today, but also generates them.  Seeing this, though, requires a new state of mind about religion.  Now it is difficult to achieve a new state of mind, not just a greater degree of intelligence, because the chief obstacle to new knowledge is not ignorance, but old knowledge.  Bahá’u’lláh says: “The most grievous of all veils is the veil of knowledge." (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 187) and: “The most grievous veil hath shut out the peoples of the earth from His glory, and hindered them from hearkening to His call.” (Gleanings: 11)

It is not that we don’t know anything, or even something of what we need to know; in this case, religious truth. It is that, either, we don’t know it in the right way but think that we do, or, are veiled from it and, naming our ignorance knowledge, fail to search for it.  Those without the new state of mind think and talk from a consciousness that is really a veil of misunderstanding about spiritual truth. Simple ignorance of spiritual reality is one thing, but arrogance against it, an attitude demonstrated by many scientists and humanists, makes things worse. This union of ignorance and arrogance manifests this statement of Bahá’u’lláh: “Indeed the actions of man himself breed a profusion of satanic power.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 176)  (Remember, the Baha'i teachings state that satan is the human ego.)

In such a state of confusion, man turns his understanding upon his own misunderstandings and, like a dog chasing its own tail, believes he is after something real and objective.  Bahá’u’lláh wrote about such objectors: "And since they are unable to attain to mysteries of knowledge and wisdom from what hath been unravelled by the Source of divine splendour, they rise in protest and burst into clamour. But it is true to say that they object to that which they comprehend, not to the expositions given by the Expounder, nor the truths imparted by the One true God, the Knower of things unseen. Their objections, one and all, turn upon themselves, and I swear by thy life that they are devoid of understanding.” (Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh: 140)

So, while we can rejoice when science and reason demolish religion’s dogmas and imitations, let us not in a fool’s triumphal joy also fail to notice that science and humanistic reason have their own dogmas and prejudices that need demolishing.