the great faiths an authority parallel with, and even inimical in spirit
to, the revealed teachings on which the tradition was based. Jesus'
familiar parable of the landowner who sowed seed in his field addresses
both the issue and its implications for the present time: "But while men
slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his
way."(25) When his servants proposed to uproot them, the landowner
replied, "Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the
wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time
of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares,
and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my
barn."(26) Throughout its pages, the Qur'an reserves its severest
condemnation for the spiritual harm caused by this competing hegemony:
"Say: The things that my Lord hath indeed forbidden are: shameful deeds,
whether open or secret; sins and trespasses against truth or reason;
assigning of partners to God, for which he hath given no authority; and
saying things about God of which ye have no knowledge."(27) To the modern
mind it is the greatest of ironies that generations of theologians, whose
impositions on religion embody precisely the betrayal so strongly
denounced in these texts, should seek to use the warning itself as a
weapon in suppressing protest against their usurpation of Divine
authority.
In effect, each new stage in the progressively unfolding revelation of
spiritual truth was frozen in time and in an array of literalistic images
and interpretations, many of them borrowed from cultures which were
themselves morally exhausted. Whatever their value at earlier stages in
the evolution of consciousness, conceptions of physical resurrection, a
paradise of carnal delights, reincarnation, pantheistic prodigies, and the
like, today raise walls of separation and conflict in an age when the
earth has literally become one homeland and human beings must learn to see
themselves as its citizens. In this context one can appreciate the reasons
for the vehemence of Baha'u'llah's warnings about the barriers that
dogmatic theology creates in the path of those seeking to understand the
will of God: "O leaders of religion! Weigh not the Book of God with such
standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is
the unerring Balance established amongst men."(28) In His Tablet to Pope
Pius IX, He advises the pontiff that God has in this day "stored away ...
in the vessels of justice" whatever is enduring in religion and "cast into
fire that which befitteth it".(29)
"Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged religious..."
Freed from the thickets with which theology has hedged religious
understanding about, the mind is able to explore familiar scriptural
passages through the eyes of Baha'u'llah. "Peerless is this Day," He
asserts, "for it is as the eye to past ages and centuries, and as a light
unto the darkness of the times."(30) The most striking observation that
results from taking advantage of this perspective is the unity of purpose
and principle running throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the Gospel and the
Qur'an, particularly, although echoes can readily be discerned in the
scriptures of others among the world's religions. Repeatedly, the same
organizing themes emerge from the matrix of precept, exhortation,
narrative, symbolism and interpretation in which they are set. Of these
foundational truths, by far the most distinctive is the progressive
articulation and emphatic assertion of the oneness of God, Creator of all
existence whether of the phenomenal world or of those realms that
transcend it. "I am the Lord," the Bible declares, "and there is none
else, there is no God beside me",(31) and the same conception underpins
the later teachings of Christ and Muhammad.
Humanity--focal point, inheritor and trustee of the world--exists to know
its Creator and to serve His purpose. In its highest expression, the
innate human impulse to respond takes the form of worship, a condition
entailing wholehearted submission to a power that is recognized as
deserving of such homage. "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever."(32) Inseparable
from the spirit of reverence itself is its expression in service to the
Divine purpose for humankind. "Say: All bounties are in the hand of God:
He granteth them to whom He pleaseth: and God careth for all, and He
knoweth all things."(33) Illumined by this understanding, the
responsibilities of humanity are clear: "It is not righteousness that ye
turn your faces towards East or West", the Qur'an states, "but it is
righteousness--to believe in God ... to spend of your substance, out of
love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer,
for those who ask...."(34) "Ye are the salt of the earth",(35) Christ
impresses on those who respond to His call. "Ye are the light of the
world."(36) Summarizing a theme that recurs time and again throughout the
Hebrew scriptures and will subsequently reappear in the Gospel and the
Qur'an, the prophet Micah asks, "...what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"(37)
There is equal agreement in these texts that the soul's ability to attain
to an understanding of its Creator's purpose is the product not merely of
its own effort, but of interventions of the Divine that open the way. The
point was made with memorable clarity by Jesus: "I am the way, the truth,
and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."(38) If one is not
to see in this assertion merely a dogmatic challenge to other stages of
the one ongoing process of Divine guidance, it is obviously the expression
of the central truth of revealed religion: that access to the unknowable
Reality that creates and sustains existence is possible only through
awakening to the illumination shed from that Realm. One of the most
cherished of the Qur'an's surihs takes up the metaphor: "God is the Light
of the heavens and the earth.... Light upon Light! God doth guide whom He
will to His Light."(39) In the case of the Hebrew prophets, the Divine
intermediary that was later to appear in Christianity in the person of the
Son of Man and in Islam as the Book of God assumed the form of a binding
Covenant established by the Creator with Abraham, Patriarch and Prophet:
"And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after
thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto
thee, and to thy seed after thee."(40)
The succession of revelations of the Divine also appears as an
implicit--and usually explicit--feature of all the major faiths. One of its
earliest and clearest expressions occurs in the Bhagavad-Gita: "I come,
and go, and come. When Righteousness declines, O Bharata! When Wickedness
is strong, I rise, from age to age, and take visible shape, and move a man
with men, succouring the good, thrusting the evil back, and setting Virtue
on her seat again."(41) This ongoing drama constitutes the basic structure
of the Bible, whose sequence of books recounts the missions not only of
Abraham and of Moses--"whom the Lord knew face to face"(42)--but of the line
of lesser prophets who developed and consolidated the work that these
primary Authors of the process had set in motion. Similarly, no amount of
contentious and fantastical speculation about the precise nature of Jesus
could succeed in separating His mission from the transformative influence
exerted on the course of civilization by the work of Abraham and Moses. He
Himself warns that it is not He Who will condemn those who reject the
message He bears, but Moses "in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses,
ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his
writings, how shall ye believe my words?"(43) With the revelation of the
Qur'an, the theme of the succession of the Messengers of God becomes
central: "We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to
Abraham, Isma'il, Isaac, Jacob ... and that given to Moses and Jesus, and
that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord...."(44)
For a sympathetic and objective reader of such passages what emerges is a
recognition of the essential oneness of religion. So it is that the term
"Islam" (literally "submission" to God) designates not merely the
particular dispensation of Providence inaugurated by Muhammad but, as the
words of the Qur'an make unmistakably clear, religion itself. While it is
true to speak of the unity of all religions, understanding of the context
is vital. At the deepest level, as Baha'u'llah 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 instrumentality 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".(45)
It is, therefore, an inadequate recognition of the unique station of
Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Muhammad--or of the succession of Avatars
who inspired the Hindu scriptures--to depict their work as the founding of
distinct religions. Rather are they appreciated when acknowledged as the
spiritual Educators of history, as the animating forces in the rise of the
civilizations through which consciousness has flowered: "He was in the
world," the Gospel declares, "and the world was made by him...."(46) That
their persons have been held in a reverence infinitely above those of any
other historical figures reflects the attempt to articulate otherwise
inexpressible feelings aroused in the hearts of unnumbered millions of
people by the blessings their work has conferred. In loving them humanity
has progressively learned what it means to love God. There is,
realistically, no other way to do so. They are not honoured by fumbling
efforts to capture the essential mystery of their nature in dogmas
invented by human imagination; what honours them is the soul's
unconditioned surrender of its will to the transformative influence they
mediate.
"Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating moral..."
Confusion about the role of religion in cultivating moral consciousness is
equally apparent in popular understanding of its contribution to the
shaping of society. Perhaps the most obvious example is the inferior
social status most sacred texts assign to women. While the resulting
benefits enjoyed by men were no doubt a major factor in consolidating such
a conception, moral justification was unquestionably supplied by people's
understanding of the intent of the scriptures themselves. With few
exceptions, these texts address themselves to men, assigning to women a
supportive and subordinate role in the life of both religion and society.
Sadly, such understanding made it deplorably easy to attach primary blame
to women for failure in the disciplining of the sexual impulse, a vital
feature of moral advancement. In a modern frame of reference, attitudes of
this kind are readily recognized as prejudiced and unjust. At the stages
of social development at which all of the major faiths came into
existence, scriptural guidance sought primarily to civilize, to the extent
possible, relationships resulting from intractable historical
circumstances. It needs little insight to appreciate that clinging to
primitive norms in the present day would defeat the very purpose of
religion's patient cultivation of moral sense.
Comparable considerations have pertained in relations between societies.
The long and arduous preparation of the Hebrew people for the mission
required of them is an illustration of the complexity and stubborn
character of the moral challenges involved. In order that the spiritual
capacities appealed to by the prophets might awaken and flourish, the
inducements offered by neighbouring idolatrous cultures had, at all costs,
to be resisted. Scriptural accounts of the condign punishments that befell
both rulers and subjects who violated the principle illustrated the
importance attached to it by the Divine purpose. A somewhat comparable
issue arose in the struggle of the newborn community founded by Muhammad
to survive attempts by pagan Arab tribes to extinguish it--and in the
barbaric cruelty and relentless spirit of vendetta animating the
attackers. No one familiar with the historical details will have
difficulty in understanding the severity of the Qur'an's injunctions on
the subject. While the monotheistic beliefs of Jews and Christians were to
be accorded respect, no compromise with idolatry was permitted. In a
relatively brief space of time, this draconian rule had succeeded in
unifying the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula and launching the newly
forged community on well over five centuries of moral, intellectual,
cultural and economic achievement, unmatched before or since in the speed
and scope of its expansion. History tends to be a stern judge. Ultimately,
in its uncompromising perspective, the consequences to those who would
have blindly strangled such enterprises in the cradle will always be set
off against the benefits accruing to the world as a whole from the triumph
of the Bible's vision of human possibilities and the advances made
possible by the genius of Islamic civilization.
Among the most contentious of such issues in understanding society's
evolution towards spiritual maturity has been that of crime and
punishment. While different in detail and degree, the penalties prescribed
by most sacred texts for acts of violence against either the commonweal or
the rights of other individuals tended to be harsh. Moreover, they
frequently extended to permitting retaliation against the offenders by the
injured parties or by members of their families. In the perspective of
history, however, one may reasonably ask what practical alternatives
existed. In the absence not merely of present-day programmes of
behavioural modification, but even of recourse to such coercive options as
prisons and policing agencies, religion's concern was to impress indelibly
on general consciousness the moral unacceptability--and practical costs--of
conduct whose effect would otherwise have been to demoralize efforts at
social progress. The whole of civilization has since been the beneficiary,
and it would be less than honest not to acknowledge the fact.
So it has been throughout all of the religious dispensations whose origins
have survived in written records. Mendicancy, slavery, autocracy,
conquest, ethnic prejudices and other undesirable features of social
interaction have gone unchallenged--or been explicitly indulged--as religion
sought to achieve reformations of behaviour that were considered more
immediately essential at given stages in the advance of civilization. To
condemn religion because any one of its successive dispensations failed to
address the whole range of social wrongs would be to ignore everything
that has been learned about the nature of human development. Inevitably,
anachronistic thinking of this kind must also create severe psychological
handicaps in appreciating and facing the requirements of one's own time.
The issue is not the past, but the implications for the present. Problems
arise where followers of one of the world's faiths prove unable to
distinguish between its eternal and transitory features, and attempt to
impose on society rules of behaviour that have long since accomplished
their purpose. The principle is fundamental to an understanding of
religion's social role: "The remedy the world needeth in its present-day
afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may
require", Baha'u'llah points out. "Be anxiously concerned with the needs
of the age ye live in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and
requirements."(47)
"The exigencies of the new age of human experience to which..."
The exigencies of the new age of human experience to which Baha'u'llah
summoned the political and religious rulers of the nineteenth century
world have now been largely adopted, at least as ideals, by their
successors and by progressive minds everywhere. By the time the twentieth
century had drawn to a close, principles that had, only short decades
earlier, been patronized as visionary and hopelessly unrealistic had
become central to global discourse. Buttressed by the findings of
scientific research and the conclusions of influential commissions--often
lavishly funded--they direct the work of powerful agencies at
international, national and local levels. A vast body of scholarly
literature in many languages is devoted to exploring practical means for
their implementation, and those programmes can count on media attention on
five continents.
Most of these principles are, alas, also widely flouted, not only among
recognized enemies of social peace, but in circles professedly committed
to them. What is lacking is not convincing testimony as to their
relevance, but the power of moral conviction that can implement them, a
power whose only demonstrably reliable source throughout history has been
religious faith. As late as the inception of Baha'u'llah's own mission,
religious authority still exercised a significant degree of social
influence. When the Christian world was moved to break with millennia of
unquestioning conviction and address at last the evil of slavery, it was
to Biblical ideals that the early British reformers sought to appeal.
Subsequently, in the defining address he gave regarding the central role
played by the issue in the great conflict in America, the president of the
United States warned that if "every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand
years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgements of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether'."(48) That era, however, was swiftly drawing to
a close. In the upheavals that followed the Second World War, even so
influential a figure as Mohandas Gandhi proved unable to mobilize the
spiritual power of Hinduism in support of his efforts to extinguish
sectarian violence on the Indian subcontinent. Nor were leaders of the
Islamic community any more effective in this respect. As prefigured in the
Qur'an's metaphorical vision of "The Day that We roll up the heavens like
a scroll",(49) the once unchallengeable authority of the traditional
religions had ceased to direct humanity's social relations.
It is in this context that one begins to appreciate Baha'u'llah's choice
of imagery about the will of God for a new age: "Think not that We have
revealed unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the
choice Wine with the fingers of might and power."(50) Through His
revelation, the principles required for the collective coming of age of
the human race have been invested with the one power capable of
penetrating to the roots of human motivation and of altering behaviour.
For those who have recognized Him, equality of men and women is not a
sociological postulate, but revealed truth about human nature, with
implications for every aspect of human relations. The same is true of His
teaching of the principle of racial oneness. Universal education, freedom
of thought, the protection of human rights, recognition of the earth's
vast resources as a trust for the whole of humankind, society's
responsibility for the well-being of its citizenry, the promotion of
scientific research, even so practical a principle as an international
auxiliary language that will advance integration of the earth's
peoples--for all who respond to Baha'u'llah's revelation, these and similar
precepts carry the same compelling authority as do the injunctions of
scripture against idolatry, theft and false witness. While intimations of
some can be perceived in earlier sacred writings, their definition and
prescription had necessarily to wait until the planet's heterogeneous
populations could set out together on the discovery of their nature as a
single human race. Through spiritual empowerment brought by Baha'u'llah's
revelation the Divine standards can be appreciated, not as isolated
principles and laws, but as facets of a single, all-embracing vision of
humanity's future, revolutionary in purpose, intoxicating in the
possibilities it opens.
Integral to these teachings are principles that address the administration
of humanity's collective affairs. A widely quoted passage in Baha'u'llah's
Tablet to Queen Victoria expresses emphatic praise of the principle of
democratic and constitutional government, but is also an admonition about
the context of global responsibility in which that principle must operate
if it is to realize its purpose in this age: "O ye the elected
representatives of the people in every land! Take ye counsel together, and
let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind and bettereth
the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard the
world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect,
hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and
maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more
severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave
full rein to their personal desires and have erred grievously. And if, at
one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was
healed, the rest remained afflicted as before."(51) In other passages,
Baha'u'llah spells out some of the practical implications. The governments
of the world are called upon to convene an international consultative body
as the foundation, in the words of the Guardian, of "a world federal
system"(52) empowered to safeguard the autonomy and territory of its state
members, resolve national and regional disputes and coordinate programmes
of global development for the good of the entire human race.
Significantly, Baha'u'llah attributes to this system, once established,
the right to suppress by force acts of aggression by one state against
another. Addressing the rulers of His day, He asserts the clear moral
authority of such action: "Should any one among you take up arms against
another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest
justice."(53)
"The power through which these goals will be progressively realized is..."