70: When Baha'u'llah proclaimed His Message to the world in the
nineteenth...
When Baha'u'llah proclaimed His Message to the world in the nineteenth
century He made it abundantly clear that the first step essential for the
peace and progress of mankind was its unification. As He says, "The
well-being of mankind, its peace and security are unattainable unless and
until its unity is firmly established." ("The World Order of Baha'u'llah",
p. 203) To this day, however, you will find most people take the opposite
point of view: they look upon unity as an ultimate, almost unattainable
goal and concentrate first on remedying all the other ills of mankind. If
they did but know it, these other ills are but various symptoms and side
effects of the basic disease--disunity. Baha'u'llah has, furthermore,
stated that the revivification of mankind and the curing of all its ills
can be achieved only through the instrumentality of His Faith....
...
We are told by Shoghi Effendi that two great processes are at work in the
world: the great Plan of God, tumultuous in its progress, working through
mankind as a whole, tearing down barriers to world unity and forging
humankind into a unified body in the fires of suffering and experience.
This process will produce, in God's due time, the Lesser Peace, the
political unification of the world. Mankind at that time can be likened to
a body that is unified but without life. The second process, the task of
breathing life into this unified body--of creating true unity and
spirituality culminating in the Most Great Peace--is that of the Baha'is,
who are labouring consciously, with detailed instructions and continuing
Divine guidance, to erect the fabric of the Kingdom of God on earth, into
which they call their fellow men, thus conferring upon them eternal life.
(8 December 1967, published in "Wellspring of Guidance: Messages
1963-1968", 1st rev. ed. (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976), pp.
131-34) [70]
71: It is true that 'Abdu'l-Baha made statements linking the establishment
of...
It is true that 'Abdu'l-Baha made statements linking the establishment of
the unity of nations to the twentieth century. For example: "The fifth
candle is the unity of nations--a unity which, in this century, will be
securely established, causing all the peoples of the world to regard
themselves as citizens of one common fatherland." And, in The "Promised
Day Is Come", following a similar statement quoted from "Some Answered
Questions", Shoghi Effendi makes this comment: "This is the stage which
the world is now approaching, the stage of world unity, which, as
'Abdu'l-Baha assures us, will, in this century, be securely established."
There is also this statement from a letter written in 1946 to an
individual believer on behalf of the beloved Guardian by his secretary:
All we know is that the Lesser and the Most Great Peace will come--their
exact dates we do not know. The same is true as regards the possibility of
a future war; we cannot state dogmatically it will or will not take
place--all we know is that mankind must suffer and be punished sufficiently
to make it turn to God.
(29 July 1974) [71]