Planning Year for Search for Truth

World Principle Planning Years, Search for Truth (Parts One and Two)


By John Taylor; 6 June, 2004

This is the revised version of an essay written on 5th September, 2003



When I first began working out the principles in the 1980's I divided each into three categories, problem, theory and solution. That is under each principle I listed, one, the problems that the principle is intended to solve, two, its particular theoretical considerations and three, the specific, practical solutions that might come about. Later I found that a larger number of sub-topics, including a dozen of the principles themselves, was a more adequate framework for capturing their many facets. Still, it is useful sometimes to picture a given principle in that threefold manner.



Last September I began a detailed discussion of the tripartite principle approach by setting up a thought experiment. I imagined a world government initiating a cycle of ten planning years. These would not be unlike the years that the United Nations declares periodically, except that each year would be hung on the peg of a Baha'i principle. Instead of holding a planning year on a theme and then forgetting about it, the UN or world governing body would repeat each principle every decade indefinitely.



I never seriously suggested to the UN or anybody else the actual adoption of such a cycle of planning years. It is just that you have to start somewhere in imagining how the principles might be consciously approached and implemented. In order to go through the three steps, collecting data about problems, reflecting on theory and finally proposing and agreeing upon solutions, there has to be a regular, systematic time orientation.



Perhaps someday Baha'i administrators will adopt a 19 year cycle for their planning, following the Bab's implicit suggestion in the Badi Calendar's 19 year Vahid cycle. I don't know, maybe a planning decade would be a step in that direction. In any case, the more I thought about the planning decade idea the more I liked it. For one thing, most people are unfamiliar with the principles as a coherent spiritual alternative to materialist ideologies. Surely the first few planning decades would be primarily devoted to publicity and basic education. Only after that would the advantages of a cycle become evident.



For one thing, a world citizen could count on encountering a given principle several times in the span of their working life. I wrote,



"a worker during a career of 40 years would go through the planning year for each principle four times and would gain perspective from comparison over time."



This would eliminate the generation gap by allowing older workers to contribute in a broader and more meaningful way to the younger generation. Even when their technical skills are obsolete, older and retired workers could give a meaningful yearly perspective on how that year's principle has been handled throughout living memory. This would tend to eliminate repetition of past errors.



Since the principle theme is set in a planning context, a decade temporal orientation would allow systematic mentoring. NASA has been criticized for just this shortcoming. (Popular Science, Constance Adams, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist," February 2004, p. 68) NASA projects and plans tend to be laboriously worked out then either rejected or completed and then abandoned; everyone with experience is fired or poached away by private industry, without a hint of long-term vision.



Of course this problem is endemic even in less demanding governance, starting with democracy itself. The lack of ability to carry plans and programs over the four year politician's term of office has long been the most annoying drawback of democracy. Planning decades oriented around the Baha'i principles would give a different standard of comparison. Instead of competing with and often undoing the work of the previous administration, a leader would inevitably compare accomplishments with planners of a decade or two in both the past and the future. This would erase partisan orientation and fix attention where it should be, on the good of our children and their children.



Last September I pictured the first two years of the planning decade as a combined festival, because the first two principles, search and oneness, are so closely allied and utterly interdependent. So before going into the details of the year for search for truth next time, I will finish with what I wrote then. I have little to add to it and will let it stand unchanged.



While the following planning years may be the direct concern of some more than others, these first two are essential for every thinking world citizen, without exception. That makes the first two international principle years pivotal: they are the focal point of all world planning. Together these two years would constitute a single world jubilee, a combined exposition and festival in every region of central concern. The celebrations would be combined with a most serious purpose, setting the tone for the planetary planning of the next eight years.



Allow me to suggest a name for this two year long event: The Synergy Festival. Synergy, a term popularized by Buckminster Fuller, has become a buzzword in the past two decades and often ends up as a fancy synonym for "cooperation." In its original meaning, though, it describes perfectly what the exposition would be designed to accomplish every decade.



Synergy is defined as the "behavior of a system as a whole greater than the sum of its parts and unpredicted by them." Fuller saw the term as the complementary opposite of "energy." Whereas energy is work that runs down entropically, synergy uses the power information to reverse that process. In the Baha'i writings equivalent co-evolutionary terms are "covenant," "confirmations," and "power of the Holy Spirit." Baha'u'llah's theology describes a spiritual synergy that collects around the Manifestation of God Who is the primal Impulse for the advance of civilization. This is the synergy of synergies. The "kingdoms of God" theory of nature, explicated by `Abdu'l-Baha, describes a set of transcendent synergies proceeding from matter (the power of motion, or energy), to plant (growth), to animal (motion, sensation) and at the highest level, the human (reason, faith). The Baha'i social principles are intended to help humanity assume its position at the top of this network of transcendent hierarchies; they teach us consciously to direct the synergy of our planet as a holistic system. They constitute a plan and framework to begin planning on world scale.



The search for truth year would bring out the synergy within each individual. Our power of reflection enables us to transcend the benighted, animal self and reach out to a higher, purer humaneness. Without this personal synergy, the second year for oneness of humanity could have nothing to do with its potential, the coming together of the vast diversity of the human race.



Indeed more often than not politics and group expression are conceived of as opposed, as ever threatening to suppress the fundamental rights and interests of the individual. This problem of right is the danger that this first year would confront head-on. Contrast that with the picture of the Master of a synergy among the flowers of a garden, ruled by one Gardener, where all its variegated aspects set off and complement one another.



"Therefore, every union and colour of leaves, of flowers and of fruits, each will contribute to the beauty and charm of the others and will make an admirable garden, and will appear in the utmost loveliness, freshness and sweetness. Likewise, when difference and variety of thoughts, forms, opinions, and characters and morals of the world of mankind come under the control of one Supreme Power, that influence of composition among the elements is the cause of life, while dissociation and separation is the cause of death." (Abdu'l-Baha, Tablet to the Peace Conference at the Hague, 12)




World Principle Planning Decade Year One,
Search for Truth (Part Two)


7 June, 2004



Ludwig Zamenhof rendered an old saying into the language he had invented, Esperanto, as, "Komenco bona --- laboro duona," literally "start well, half the work." I think the version in English is "The first step is half the journey." The proverb in either form nicely sums up what the first Baha'i principle is all about. Start with due reflection as to what exactly the problem is, then go straight towards the solution. Proper preparation by thinking interspersed with regular reflection and meditation means fewer wrong turns, half the travail for twice the results. And of course, the best beginning is to start with the Origin of truth.



"The road to attain to this Truth is the love of God. ...As to what causes the growth of the love of God, know that it is to turn one's self toward God;" [`Abdu'l-Baha, SW Vol 13, p. 164]



Today I want to go over the ways that a world government might encourage this love by celebrating a Year for planning the search for truth. It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of encouraging and fostering the search for truth in everyone's life. If there is no love or serious thought within, how can we ever expect to have the wherewithal to build the foundations of peace without? Baha'u'llah's Seven Valleys places Search as the first valley that a seeker of truth must enter. He writes,



"The steed of this Valley is patience; without patience the wayfarer on this journey will reach nowhere and attain no goal." (SVFV, 4-5)



A person who is devoted to her own search for truth is able to focus upon a single goal over a long period and is therefore much more likely to live a fruitful life than one prone to every fad and passing fashion. For example, Isaac Newton, believed by many to be the greatest scientist who ever lived, wrote, "If I have succeeded in my inquiries more than others, I owe it less to my superior strength of mind, than to the habit of patient thinking." The more truth seekers like that around us the more secure the foundations will be for stable and secure improvements in every area of endeavour. The emphasis of this year, then, would be on helping people reduce the stresses and strains of daily life so as to be more creative, or at least more patient and longsuffering. This might include finding a better balance in the amount of time we spend at work, in the family and alone.



The beauty in our built environment is also very important for this. This includes the nature and amount of contact we have with it. Recent studies confirm, for example, that inhabitants of segregated suburbs are more prone to heart disease and other stress related conditions than those who live in mixed neighborhoods where they are required to carry out daily activities on foot rather than in a vehicle. The family domicile needs to be redesigned to give priority not only to physical activity but also to make allowances for quiet meditation; the Hindu custom of a shrine or alter in the home is worthy of imitation.



Some find truth and recoup strength while sitting alone in garden or dark room; others improve themselves by expanding their horizons, traveling, meeting new people and visiting different climes. Most, I am sure, benefit from a combination of both. The International Year for Search for Truth would therefore be a year for rethinking culture, entertainment, sports, recreation and all aspects of leisure time. How do we integrate these benefits into an examined life?



This would surely call upon the world's largest industry, the travel industry, to help more seekers gain their strength and perspective. This might be done by offering reduced fares and fees to allow the disadvantaged to attend UN Year sponsored events. However, while the year for search would encourage travel, its most lasting benefits would be in improving the workplace, the home and the road between them.



It is therefore most important that improvements to the meditative life be integral to daily routines. William James called habit the flywheel of society, and the daily habits of a reflective life will surely do all that a flywheel does: store energy, lend stability while allowing tremendous dynamism and -- like a gyroscope -- the spin will orient our lives to an independent center of balance, no matter what the particular slant of our surroundings may be. In a similar way, even in His most mystic writing, Baha'u'llah does not artificially separate the reflective phase of search from its expression in work,



"...In their search, they have stoutly girded up the loins of service, and seek at every moment to journey from the plane of heedlessness into the realm of being. (Id.)



The Baha'i vision of a Mashriqu'l-Adhkar in each town is a perfect model of a quiet center around which our hectic lives can spin. It places the most sanctified edifice, wholly devoted to song and worship, right in the center of each town and village. Being in the middle, everyone can walk there daily, stroll among its surrounding gardens, and then attend dawn prayers and readings of the Holy Texts. Because this happens before going to work, it allows for reflection and spirituality to enter fully into mind and heart as one enters into the labor of one's calling. At the same time, the Mashriq is surrounded by social service organizations. Travelers, the disabled and others without employment might after the morning devotional session visit and serve in one or more of these institutions surrounding the Mashriq.



These service institutions surrounding the place of worship will make service to the disadvantaged part of every balanced lifestyle. For example, `Abdu'l-Baha once observed that the poor themselves tend to much more charitable than the wealthy, for they know the need. This sorry fact of human psychology will be plain to see when rich and poor serve the disadvantaged together elbow to elbow. This approach would be the reverse of the hidden charity and anonymous transfer payments that support, palliate and paralyze the poor today. There must be personal contact or the mutual benefits of love and service cannot take effect.



"...he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me." (Psalms 101:6)



Now our public spaces are dominated by force-feeding commercial interests whose malls accommodate only what promotes profit not what makes for happiness. A Mashriq would turn the center towards God and make the lifestyle of the Master a more normal thing. His example was the perfect picture of the practical path trodden by mystical feet. The service institutions around the Mashriq will have to be carefully designed to encourage all to walk that walk. `Abdu'l-Baha went on daily rounds, personally visiting the indigent in groups and the working poor apart by paying them private house calls -- these were too proud to allow public exposure of their neediness. Spending His time in this way He showed an example of a life utterly devoted to helping others. In order to encourage all to do something like this every day, the structure of our public spaces will have to be radically changed.

So the first planning year would ask questions like: how can we place the poor on a high pedestal and encourage all to participate in their service? How can we make a theoretical good into a routine essential to all of our perfection?