CENTURY OF LIGHT

 Baha'i Faith at the contemporary stage of development

 

As we have discussed already, Bahá’ís believe that powerful forces are at work in the world, awakening human consciousness and preparing humanity for the next stage in its collective evolution -- its unification within the borders of our planet.

The oneness of humanity is one of the most profound truths about human nature.  The time in history when this truth emerged, fully-fledged if you like, was during the twentieth century.  At the century’s beginning, nothing could have been more inconceivable or further removed from human experience. But a remarkable process took place during the hundred years from 1900 – profound, irreversible, revolutionary change in the very structure of society and in the relationships between the central actors in society. So that by the century’s end, recognition of this fundamental principle of life prompted the representatives of over 1000 non-governmental organisations gathered in New York in May 2000 to declare that “ ... We are one human family, in all our diversity, living on one common homeland and sharing a just, sustainable and peaceful world.”

The light that shone through the sometimes very dark years of the twentieth century was that of unity – the twentieth century was the century of light because in it the universal recognition of the oneness of humankind was established.  Despite the horrors that were unleashed during that most turbulent and painful period in human history, it was not the century of darkness.

What happened?  Basically, what took place during the last century was a revolution in consciousness.  What form did it take?  One expression of this was the way in which the human mind began to experience fundamental changes in the way in which it understood and was aware of the physical universe and the forces operating within it, eg the development of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.  These breakthroughs revolutionised the field of physics and the entire course of scientific development, which ultimately gave birth to a whole new view of the world.  This was a paradigm shift of mega proportions.  And further advances in science and technology have literally made possible the physical contraction and integration of the world.

Another dimension to this revolution of consciousness was the fundamental transformation in the way in which the earth’s inhabitants came to regard one another as members of one human family and, further, to begin to plan their collective future.  

Through shared discoveries and shared travails, peoples of diverse cultures – peoples who had previously little or no contact or even awareness of each other – were suddenly, in the historical scheme of things, brought face to face with the common humanity lying just beneath the surface of imagined differences in identity.  This profound shift of consciousness animated and reinforced the vast process of structural reorganisation that had been taking place throughout the world.

With a swiftness that is breathtaking in the perspective of history, the twentieth century saw the oneness of the human race establish itself as a guiding principle of international order.  Today, the ethnic conflicts that continue to wreak havoc in many parts of the world are seen not as natural features of the relations among diverse peoples, but as wilful aberrations that must be brought under effective international control. 

Let us reflect on some of the evidences of this shift of consciousness and the signs of the process of the progressive unification of humankind:

  • The emotional closeness brought about by revolutions in communications technology, eg email and the World Wide Web
  • Revolutions in the exploration of outer space and the image of the earth as a jewel in an oasis of space (1969)
  • Live Aid and the outpouring of global compassion
  • Second World War and the Holocaust – recognition of the family of man, birth of the international human rights movement
  • The birth of international consultative systems and a new international political order – the League of Nations and the United Nations.  Whatever their shortcomings, and however constrained by narrow political self-interest of their members, these institutions and their various agencies were brought into being so that common solutions could finally be found to common problems
  • Unity of thought emerged in relation to such important undertakings as the protection of the environment, universal education and health
  • The international legal machinery that was put in place to protect and safeguard the rights of the family of man.  The concept of international crimes and their enforcement (the fact that national sovereignty has recognisable and enforceable limits)

The upshot of all of this was that, during the twentieth century, humanity was finally able to view itself in one perspective.

No less profound shifts in consciousness have occurred in other areas.  Overnight, in the historical scheme of things, the view that women are essentially inferior to men was demolished.  The loosening of the grip of religious prejudice – the process of interfaith dialogue and collaboration served to undermine the once impregnable walls of clerical authority.  Indeed, the current outburst of fundamentalist reaction may come, in retrospect, to be seen as little more than desperate rearguard actions against an inevitable dissolution of sectarian control.

Another revolution that took place with dramatic effect during the last century was that of the empowerment of the peoples of the world.  The twentieth century was the century in which the peoples of the world found themselves with places to stand in dignity and began to take charge of their own destiny in every sense of the word – politically, spiritually, intellectually.  Think of the fate and state of the vast majority of the peoples of the world at the beginning of the century.  The masses of mankind were seen not as protagonists but essentially as objects of the civilising process. Out of the Second World War a new kind of moral and legal commitment to the rights of the world’s peoples emerged.  This development was inconceivable some decades earlier.  Suddenly, they found they had the freedom to work out, however tentatively, their own destinies.  A corner had been turned that left behind six or more millennia of history.

One has to admit that this process has suffered its fair degree of setbacks, but the trend has clearly been towards greater empowerment as the generality of the human race has become increasingly endowed, through breakthroughs in science and technology which provided people everywhere with access to the accumulated knowledge of the entire human race, with the means to realise the visionary goals summoned up by a steadily maturing consciousness.  What we have seen here basically has been a change of extraordinary magnitude during a relatively brief period of historical time.

So, it was the twentieth century in which humanity, despite countless setbacks, took the first faltering steps out of the darkness of fear, mutual suspicion and mistrust and embraced the ideal of unity.  With this foundation in place, the process of building a global society embodying the principles of justice and equality could begin.  It was in the twentieth century that the first chapter in the story of humanity at long last conscious of its oneness was written.  It is the first of many chapters.  The next chapter in the story of humanity is for us to write.

To appreciate the transformations brought about in almost every department of life in recent times is not to deny the accompanying darkness that throws the achievements into sharp relief – the genocides, the rise of ideologies and political systems that suffocated the spiritual and intellectual life of entire nations and peoples, wholesale damage to the physical environment, widespread poverty, and the damage done to generations of children who have been taught to believe that violence, indecency and selfishness are triumphs of personal liberty.  But, sometimes, the dark clouds of chaos, strife, conflict and confusion that surround us can cause us to easily lose sight of the light of unity.

But darkness is not endowed with some independent existence and force.  It does not extinguish light nor diminish it, but marks out those areas that light has not reached or adequately illumined.  The ferocities of animal nature which raged out of control through the years of the twentieth century did not, in fact, prevent the steady unfoldment of the creative potentialities which human consciousness possesses.  Paradoxically, the distress caused by prevailing conditions seers one’s conscience and aids in the process of spiritual liberation by awakening our consciousness.

Think of the Holocaust, the sub-Saharan famine of the mid-1980s, the South Asian Tsunami of December 2004 – the tumult, the horrors, the pain, the suffering – all of these things, in the final analysis, prepares the human race and makes it receptive to the light.  It signalises crisis, but also opportunities and possibilities for change and transformation.

The turmoil now convulsing human affairs is unprecedented and many of its consequences are enormously destructive.  It is not enough that we simply sit back and acknowledge the adversity of our times. Rather, it is essential that we grasp its context.  Further, we need to have the courage to examine what is happening in the world without making the usual easy assumptions.

Bahá’u’lláh has brought a distinctive, indeed radical perspective on the historical process.  As we have mentioned before, the entire enterprise we call civilisation is a spiritual process, one in which the human mind and heart have created progressively complex and efficient means to express their inherent moral and intellectual capacities.  This therefore places current, secular history in a perspective sharply different from the one that prevails today.  We are urged to place ourselves in the immense enterprise that is the advancement of civilisation.  In this context, then,

the current condition of the world is a natural phase in the life of humanity.  Just like the life of a human being, humanity’s life is an organic process.  And just like a human life has stages, has phases, so does the life of human society.

We have now reached the critical stage of the coming of age of the human race.  We are somewhere between adolescence and adulthood.  The prejudice, the conflict, the disunity, the injustice, the exploitation – these have been the expression of immature stages in a vast historical process.  Just as adolescence is not the end of life, this phase of history does not represent the ultimate stage in history.

But it is a very turbulent time.  However, as we know, adolescence usually gives way to something more mature, more composed, more refined.  So, too, with the life of humanity.  We are have therefore reached a turning point in the history of civilisation – we are on the threshold of a distinctly new phase in humanity’s collective existence.

As a result of the insights into the historical process communicated by Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’ís believe that the period of history which we are living through, with all its obvious disasters and problems, is unprecedented in the potential it has and the opportunities it provides to every individual, every institution and every community, to write a dazzling future for humanity.

The turbulence of our adolescence is a product of powerful forces that shape the political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual landscape.  These forces are moving towards a climax. 

The Bahá’í Writings describe these forces as the simultaneous processes of integration and disintegration, of rise and fall, of order and chaos.  These forces seem to run at opposite sides of the same corridor of time, pulling and pushing the world, it would seem, in contrary directions.  But is this so?

It is the understanding brought by Bahá’u’lláh that these different forces serve ultimately the same common end.  The process of integration and unification has already been briefly discussed and we have already noted some examples of it at work in the world and the developments it has brought about, eg the physical contraction of the world as a result of breakthroughs in science and technology, the diffusion of the spirit of world solidarity and the rise of global agencies dedicated to promoting human welfare and coordinating economic activity, new systems of global organisation, etc.

The process of disintegration and disruption that affects all areas of life is equally necessary.  Its manifestations include the collapse of great power blocs, empires and all-consuming ideologies; increasing lawlessness and violence, including the rise of terrorism and organised crime; the deepening moral crisis in the world; the widening divide between rich and poor; the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources; the environmental crisis and threats to the natural world; the breakdown of institutions – religious and political – which traditionally functioned as the guideposts for the stability of society; political corruption that has produced widespread public disillusionment, strong waves of anti-institutional sentiment, growing public apathy and cynicism; the rise of a crass and corrosive materialism.

The significance of this process of decline and disintegration is this: it clears the way for the seeds of oneness and unity to take root by tearing down the barriers to the recognition of the oneness of humanity.  The habits, attitudes, assumptions and institutions that have accumulated over the centuries are being subject to tests that are necessary to human development as the multifarious forces of change move relentlessly through all areas of human thought and activity.

The greatest error, however, we could make at this juncture is to allow this crisis to cast doubt on the ultimate outcome of the process that is occurring.  And that is the unification of the human race.  But only if humanity’s collective adolescence has indeed come to an end and the age of its adulthood is dawning does such a prospect represent more than a utopian dream.  Only if, as Bahá’u’lláh asserts to be the case, the course of social evolution has arrived at one of those decisive turning points through which all of the phenomena of existence are impelled suddenly forward into new stages of their development can such a possibility be conceived. 

It is the unalterable conviction of the Bahá’í community that this stage in human history has now been reached, namely humanity’s adulthood – a moment in history in which we are blessed to have at our disposal the raw materials for building a united, global civilisation.  A time when new capacities emerge.  The capacity to forge unity.  The capacity to turn away from the patterns of conflict that have so dominated social organisation in the past and to learn new ways of consultation and collaboration.  The capacity to administer justice.  The capacity to selflessly serve the wider interests of humanity and to subordinate personal and group interests to the crying needs of society as a whole.  The capacity to free ourselves from the grip of materialistic assumptions that pervade society and paralyse impulses for change.

Bahá’u’lláh has invited the human race to become the loving and confident agents of a great civilising process, whose pivot is the recognition of the oneness of the human race.  In arising to undertake this sacred mission, we are guaranteed success.  For at least two reasons.

One, the direction of the historical process itself.  The plates of history are shifting dramatically.  Today, throughout the world, the tides of historical change roll in with insisting urgency and tumultuous force.  They are not merely at the door of the house, but rise up irresistibly through its floors.  They cannot be diverted.  They cannot be denied. 

The other is the promise that in arising to participate in this greatest of enterprises we will find unlocked in ourselves and others entirely new capacities with which God has in this Day endowed the human race, and which will find their fullest expression in the global civilisation that is now beckoning humanity.  In the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

“Ye must become the very soul of the world, the living spirit in the body of the children of men.  In this wondrous age, at this time when the Ancient Beauty ... hath risen above the horizon of the world, the Word of God hath infused such awesome power into the inmost essence of humankind that he hath stripped men’s human qualities of all effect, and hath, with His All-Conquering Might, unified the peoples in a vast sea of oneness.”

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