The opening statement of the Gospel attributed to Jesus' disciple,
John--"In the beginning was the Word..."--has fascinated readers for two
thousand years. The passage goes on to assert with breathtaking simplicity
and directness a spiritual truth that has been central to all revealed
religions, vindicated time and again in a succession of civilizations down
the ages: "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him". The
promised Manifestation of God appears; a community of believers forms
around this focal centre of spiritual life and authority; a new system of
values begins to reorder both consciousness and behaviour; the arts and
sciences respond; a restructuring of laws and of the administration of
social affairs takes place. Slowly, but irresistibly, a new civilization
emerges, one that so fulfils the ideals and so engages the capacities of
millions of human beings that it does indeed constitute a new world, a
world far more real to those who "live, move, and have their being"(151)
in it than the earthly foundations on which it rests. Throughout the
centuries that follow, society continues to depend for its cohesion and
self-confidence primarily on the spiritual impulse that gave it birth.
With the appearance of Baha'u'llah, the phenomenon has recurred --this time
on a scale that embraces the totality of the earth's inhabitants. In the
events of the twentieth century can be seen the first stages of the
universal transformation of society set in motion by the Revelation of
which Baha'u'llah wrote:
I testify that no sooner had the First Word proceeded, through the potency
of Thy will and purpose, out of His mouth ... than the whole creation was
revolutionized, and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth
were stirred to the depths. Through that Word the realities of all created
things were shaken, were divided, separated, scattered, combined and
reunited, disclosing, in both the contingent world and the heavenly
kingdom, entities of a new creation, and revealing, in the unseen realms,
the signs and tokens of Thy unity and oneness.(152)
Shoghi Effendi describes this process of world unification as the "Major
Plan" of God, whose operation will continue, gathering force and momentum,
until the human race has been united in a global society that has banished
war and taken charge of its collective destiny. What the struggles of the
twentieth century achieved was the fundamental change of direction the
Divine purpose required. The change is irreversible. There is no way back
to an earlier state of affairs, however greatly some elements of society
may, from time to time, be tempted to seek one.
The importance of the historic breakthrough that has thus occurred is in
no way minimized by recognition that the process has barely begun. It must
lead in time, as Shoghi Effendi has made clear, to the spiritualization of
human consciousness and the emergence of the global civilization that will
embody the Will of God. Merely to state the goal is to acknowledge the
great distance that the human race has yet to traverse. It was against the
most intense resistance at every level of society, among governed and
governors alike, that the political, social and conceptual changes of the
past hundred years were achieved. Ultimately, they were accomplished only
at the cost of terrible suffering. It would be unrealistic to imagine that
the challenges lying ahead may not exact an even greater toll of a human
race that still seeks, by every means in its power, to avoid the spiritual
implications of the experience it is undergoing. Shoghi Effendi's words on
the consequences of this obduracy of heart and mind make sober reading:
Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and upheavals,
war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of
an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it has disdained
to recognize and follow.(153)
* * * * *
Barely a third of the twentieth century had elapsed when the Guardian
summoned the followers of Baha'u'llah to a far deeper understanding of the
Cause itself than anything they had yet appreciated. The Faith had reached
the point, he said, when it was "ceasing to designate itself a movement, a
fellowship and the like", designations which, although perhaps appropriate
at a time when the message was first being introduced to the West, now
"did grave injustice to its ever-unfolding system". Rejecting as adequate
even the term "religion" in its familiar sense, he pointed out that the
Faith was already:
...visibly succeeding in demonstrating its claim and title to be regarded
as a World Religion, destined to attain, in the fullness of time, the
status of a world-embracing Commonwealth, which would be at once the
instrument and the guardian of the Most Great Peace announced by its
Author.(154)
As the century advanced, the same creative Force that was awakening the
generality of humankind to its oneness was progressively releasing the
powers inherent in the Cause and opening a new role for it in human
affairs. Over the first two decades of the century, through the loving
care of the Master, the spiritual and administrative foundations necessary
to Baha'u'llah's purpose were established. On the base thus made
available--during the thirty-six years of his own ministry, and the
subsequent six years during which his Ten Year Crusade guided the
community's efforts--Shoghi Effendi devoted himself to refining the
administrative instruments needed to carry forward the Divine Plan. With
the successful establishment in 1963 of the Universal House of Justice,
the Baha'is of the world set out on the first stage of a mission of long
duration: the spiritual empowerment of the whole body of humankind as the
protagonists of their own advancement. By the time the century ended, this
immense effort had brought into existence a community representative of
the diversity of the entire human race, unified in its beliefs and
allegiance, and committed to building a global society that will reflect
on earth the spiritual and moral vision of its Founder.
This process was immeasurably strengthened in 1992 through the
long-awaited publication of a fully-annotated translation into English of
the Kitab-i-Aqdas, a repository of Divine guidance for the age of
humanity's collective maturity. A spreading circle of translations was
soon providing followers of the Faith around the world with direct access
to a Book which its Author has described as: "the Dayspring of Divine
knowledge, if ye be of them that understand, and the Dawning-place of
God's commandments, if ye be of those who comprehend."(155) Apart from the
soul's recognition of the Manifestation of God, nothing awakens so great a
sense of confidence and vitality in human consciousness--both individual
and collective--as does the force of moral certitude. In the Kitab-i-Aqdas,
laws that are basic to both personal and community life have been
reformulated in the context of a society that embraces the whole range of
human diversity. New laws and concepts address the further needs of a
human race that is entering on its collective coming of age. "O peoples of
the earth!", is Baha'u'llah's appeal, "Cast away that which ye possess,
and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things. Thus
biddeth you the Lord of creation, the movement of Whose Pen hath
revolutionized the soul of mankind."(156)
A feature of the past hundred years of Baha'i development that should
seize the attention of any observer is the Faith's success in overcoming
the attacks made on it. As had been the case during the ministries of the
Bab and Baha'u'llah, elements in society who either resented the rise of
the new religion or feared the principles it teaches sought by every means
in their power to suffocate it. Hardly a decade of the past century did
not witness attempts of this kind--ranging from the bloody persecutions
incited by _Sh_i'ih clergy and the shameless falsehoods concocted and
spread by their Christian counterparts, to systematic efforts at
suppression by various totalitarian regimes, and, finally, to violations
of their commitment to Baha'u'llah on the part of the insincere, the
ambitious or the malevolent among its professed adherents. By every human
standard, the Cause should have succumbed to a barrage of opposition
without parallel in recent history. Far from succumbing, it flourished.
Its reputation rose, its membership vastly increased, its influence spread
beyond the dreams of earlier generations of its followers. Persecution
served to galvanize its supporters' efforts. Calumny drove believers to
seek a more mature understanding of its history and teachings. And, as
both the Master and the Guardian had promised, violation of the Covenant
washed out of its ranks persons whose behaviour and attitudes had dampened
the faith of others and inhibited progress. If the Cause could bring no
other testimony to the powers that sustain it, this succession of triumphs
alone should suffice.
* * * * *
Three years before his passing, Shoghi Effendi took advantage of the
acquisition of the last plot of land needed for the erection of the
International Archives Building to describe for the Baha'i world the
nature and significance of the building project on the slopes of Mount
Carmel that the Master had inaugurated and that he himself was pursuing:
These Edifices will, in the shape of a far-flung arc, and following a
harmonizing style of architecture, surround the resting-places of the
Greatest Holy Leaf ... of her Brother ... and of their Mother.... The
ultimate completion of this stupendous undertaking will mark the
culmination of the development of a world-wide divinely-appointed
Administrative Order whose beginnings may be traced as far back as the
concluding years of the Heroic Age of the Faith.(157)
The current stage of this ambitious enterprise was brought to its
successful conclusion in the final year of the century. An outpouring of
resources from believers throughout the world had responded to the vision
of Baha'u'llah for this sacred spot, announced in His Tablet of Carmel:
"Rejoice, for God hath in this day established upon thee His throne, hath
made thee the dawning-place of His signs and the dayspring of the
evidences of His Revelation." In the complex of majestic buildings spread
out along the Arc and the flights of terraced gardens rising from the foot
of the mountain to its summit, the Cause whose influence had steadily
expanded throughout the world during the century of light emerged finally
as a visible and compelling presence. In the crowds of visitors from every
land thronging the stairs and pathways each day and the stream of
distinguished guests who are welcomed to the World Centre's reception
rooms, perceptive minds already sense the dawning fulfilment of the vision
recorded twenty-three hundred years ago by the prophet Isaiah: "And it
shall come to pass in the last days, _that_ the mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be
exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it."(158)
The Baha'i Cause is distinguished above all else by its nature as an
uncompromised organic whole. Embodying the principle of unity that lies at
the heart of Baha'u'llah's Revelation, this nature is the sign of the
presence of the indwelling Spirit that animates the Faith. Alone among the
religions of history--and despite repeated efforts to break this unity--the
Cause has successfully resisted the perennial blight of schism and
faction. The success of the community's teaching work is assured by the
fact that the instruments it uses were created by the Revelation itself,
that it was the Faith's Founders who conceived the methods for the
prosecution of its Divine Plan, and that it was They who guided, in every
significant detail, the launching of the enterprise. During the twentieth
century, through the efforts of 'Abdu'l-Baha and the Guardian, Mount
Carmel itself has become an expression of this oneness of the Faith's
being. In contrast to the circumstances of other world religions, the
spiritual and administrative centres of the Cause are inseparably bound
together in this same spot on earth, its guiding institutions centred on
the Shrine of its martyred Prophet. For many visitors, even the harmony
that has been achieved in the variegated flowers, trees and shrubs of the
surrounding gardens seems to proclaim the ideal of unity in diversity that
they find attractive in the Faith's teachings.
Nothing so dramatically marked the conclusion of one hundred years of
achievement as an event that also plunged believers the world over into
deep sorrow. On 19 January 2000, a message from the Universal House of
Justice announced:
In the early hours of this morning, the soul of Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih
_Kh_anum, beloved consort of Shoghi Effendi and the Baha'i world's last
remaining link with the family of 'Abdu'l-Baha, was released from the
limitations of this earthly existence.... Her twenty years of intimate
association with Shoghi Effendi evoked from his pen such accolades as "my
helpmate', 'my shield', 'my tireless collaborator in the arduous tasks I
shoulder'....
As the initial shock of grief began to lift, appreciation of yet another
of the inexhaustible bounties of Baha'u'llah gradually took its place. To
a figure whose long lifetime had spanned most of the century--and whose
indomitable spirit had sustained Baha'i struggles and sacrifices
throughout its latter half--it had been given to live and celebrate the
magnificent victories to which she had so magnificently contributed.
* * * * *
In calling on those who have recognized Him to share the message of the
Day of God with others, Baha'u'llah turns again to the language of
creation itself: "Every body calleth aloud for a soul. Heavenly souls must
needs quicken, with the breath of the Word of God, the dead bodies with a
fresh spirit."(159) The principle is as true of the collective life of
humankind, 'Abdu'l-Baha points out, as it is of the lives of its
individual members: "Material civilization is like the body. No matter how
infinitely graceful, elegant and beautiful it may be, it is dead. Divine
civilization is like the spirit, and the body gets its life from the
spirit...."(160)
In this compelling analogy is summed up the relationship between the two
historical developments that the Will of God propelled forward along
converging tracks during the century of light. Only a person blind to the
intellectual and social capacities latent in the human race, and
insensitive to humanity's desperate needs, could fail to take deep
satisfaction from the advances that society has made during the past
hundred years, and particularly from the processes knitting together the
earth's peoples and nations. How much more are such achievements cherished
by Baha'is, who see in them the very Purpose of God. But this Body of
humanity's material civilization calls aloud, yearns more desperately with
each passing day, for its Soul. As with every great civilization in
history, until it is so animated, and its spiritual faculties awakened, it
will find neither peace, nor justice, nor a unity that rises above the
level of negotiation and compromise. Addressing the "elected
representatives of the people in every land", Baha'u'llah wrote:
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest
instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its
peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.(161)
It is not, therefore, in providing support, nor encouragement, nor even
example that the work of the Cause chiefly lies. The Baha'i community will
go on contributing in every way possible to efforts toward global
unification and social betterment, but such contributions are secondary to
its purpose. Its purpose is to assist the people of the world to open
their minds and hearts to the one Power that can fulfil their ultimate
longing. There are none, except those who have themselves awakened to the
Revelation of God, who can bring this help. There are none who can offer
credible testimony to a coming world of peace and justice but those who
understand, however dimly, the words with which the Voice of God summoned
Baha'u'llah to arise and undertake His mission:
Canst thou discover any one but Me, O Pen, in this Day? What hath become
of the creation and the manifestations thereof? What of the names and
their kingdom? Whither are gone all created things, whether seen or
unseen? What of the hidden secrets of the universe and its revelations?
Lo, the entire creation hath passed away! Nothing remaineth except My
Face, the Ever-Abiding, the Resplendent, the All-Glorious.
This is the Day whereon naught can be seen except the splendors of the
Light that shineth from the face of Thy Lord, the Gracious, the Most
Bountiful. 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. I am, verily, the
All-Bountiful, the Ancient of Days.(162)