Spiritual Justice

Justice and Spiritual Principle

By John Taylor; 2007 Apr 10

At last Wednesday's fireside Silvie and I had the chance to speak after Gordon Naylor's talk with a charming young woman, raised as a Baha'i, from New Zealand. What a cool accent these Kiwis have! Then I read what they had done with their air force. They just up and sold the whole deal. Every plane they had, sold off every last one of them. What a cool way to reject militarism! Then yesterday I was notified that a Baha'i youth magazine in New Zealand wishes to publish the Badi Blog entry for Tuesday, March 5, 2007, called "It is all about Morality." Seeing as it is about to be published and printed on real paper, I went back to the blog and read over my rather rambling discussion of sex; I had forgot it so thoroughly that it seemed like someone else had written it. Yet I recall thinking at the time, this essay is of fairly pivotal importance to me, but that is often my thought before my brain ignores my wishes and wipes the slate clean.

I have been writing about justice off and on since the eleventh of January of this year, and here too I have completely forgotten what I have written. Going over and sorting out the piles of research materials I have stored up bogged my essay production down over the past few days. Justice is a very large mountain, much bigger than I thought. Over the past few months I have taken some runs up the hill at trying to define justice but every time my old nemesis, gravity, takes over and I roll back down to sea level again. It is clear that I will have to buy some rope and an ice hammer and get ready for serious mountain climbing, by which I mean, a run-through of the Baha'i principles.

Let us start with the spiritual principles.

Justice is behind all of the spiritual principles, the Oneness of God, the Power of the Holy Spirit and Covenant. God is one and expects His creation to reflect that oneness. If you want a treat, go to Utube and look up "Martha Root." Here you will find a short goodbye from her, as well as another recording of her reading a prayer of Baha'u'llah that deals very profoundly with the Oneness of God. What a thrill it was for me to stumble across this formerly obscure recording, no doubt taken off an old wax cylinder, of the greatest -- by far the greatest -- Baha'i teacher in history. How sweet it was to hear for the first time that pure heart reflected through her ardent voice. Words fail us in describing the principle of the Oneness of God, and words fail me in trying to describe what it was like to hear Martha Root read that prayer.

The Oneness of God is the first spiritual principle, and it is violated first, before all other sins and injustices. The tyrant always uses the divide and rule tactic, for he thrives on splits, depends upon the lack of fellow feeling among both his victims and the rest of the world. The following, which I stumbled upon last night, though it does not mention God shows why history itself demonstrates again and again that oneness is the heart of justice.

Why is Free Speech so important?

Why speak up about things that don't seem to affect you? Perhaps Pastor Martin Neimoller's view in one version of his quote will answer that question. He supported the Nazis until he realized, too late, what they were really about and was sent to Dachau concentration camp.  He was one of the fortunate to be freed and live until 1984.

First they came for the Communists,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Social Democrat.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Jew,
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

Justice and the Power of the Holy Spirit.

The next spiritual principle is power of the Holy Spirit, the divine promise of confirmation. Here is how its logic runs:

The Almighty God treats us fairly as well as lovingly, and we in return do our best to do Him justice. His Teaching challenges us to aspire to the highest ideals of what is right, and we inevitably fall short. But He promises to aid us. So pure justice must be possible. "Ask, and ye shall receive," Jesus promised, and His promise shines through the darkness. Absolute justice is no pipe dream, for "with God, all things are possible." The power of God stands for life, for change, for growth, even as the Qu'ran says,

"He is the Living, there is no God but He, therefore call on Him, being sincere to Him in obedience; (all) praise is due to `Allah, the Lord of the worlds." (Q40:65, Shakir)

Yesterday I was stumbling through the Net and came across another demonstration of a spiritual reality. It was a very moving, if not traumatic, photograph showing a tiny, starving toddler crawling out of the desert toward a United Nations relief compound, with a vulture sitting on a rock, patiently, in the background. The caption explained that the photographer had been advised never to touch famine victims because they carry disease. He never did find out what happened to the baby. He confided to friends later that he regretted not intervening on behalf of the baby. Four weeks later he won the Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism for that photograph and week after that he killed himself. If I had taken that snapshot and did nothing I too would hold my life cheap.

Imagine the anguish that poor photographer must have felt when a photo he wished did not exist won the Pulitzer Prize. I can tell you this for sure; his suicide demonstrates the sapping of strength, the devaluing of life that comes of expelling God, the Way of Life. Yet tragedies as heart-rending this, and worse, are going on every day now in Darfur and other wastelands of injustice. Global warming brings the threat of mass starvation ever nearer. Mass famine is my greatest fear for the future. And remember, Abdu'l-Baha said, when conditions are such that you see starvation, you can be certain that tyranny lurks somewhere behind.

Covenant as a Spiritual Principle

All injustice ultimately comes of rejecting the Covenant of God, even in cases like that photographer where all the wrong we do is to fail to do the right thing. On the other hand, we have the promise of all the Manifestations of God that massive strength and confirmations are added unto us as soon as we stand up for justice. That, in a word, is the spiritual principle of justice.

When you think of it, that is how the Master resisted tyranny, ever since He was a child. He did the right thing; He fed the poor. He did not go out and rebel or march in the street or in any way wrestle wills with tyrants. He just did all in his power to stop the result of evil by holding off starvation. It was spiritual, non-political activism. It is the way of the future, for this is what spiritual principle teaches. There may be times when marching in the street is the thing to do, I do not say that, but many other times, if not most of the time, agitation is just that, agitating, and does more harm than good. But there is never a time when helping out a brother or sister in distress is wrong or unjust.