Mentions

Baha'i Mention, and Other Mentions
By John Taylor; 2007 July 14

Distinctive Devotion
Baha'i Economist
Email Book Service
Work and Happiness
Baha'i Mention in "Earth in the Balance."

I promised to look into an excerpt from a 1992 book by Al Gore called Earth in the Balance. But first some other notes.

This man's Feast of Kalimat dissipated into thin air. Weeks ago our diligent secretary determined that everyone had previous engagements -- myself, I thought that since we were all born after 1844 when the Badi' calendar was set up, that we could not have any previous engagements, but such it seems is not the case. The only ones in all of Haldimand able to attend were myself and Silvie and Thomas. Even Marie could not be there, since she is working evenings.

So last night we hopped in the car, stopped in at my old pal Larry McPhee's place in the East End, and took him to the Kalimat Feast of my former home community, Hamilton. I had found out about the event in their on-line calendar, which includes a lovely poem about Baha'i elections. At Kalimat I had the chance to get the author's permission to share the following poem here. Leave it to Baha'u'llah to inspire a young heart with, of all things, an election. So, without further ado:

Distinctive Devotion
By Lucy Vorobej, (age 16)

Many have come, gathered to see
The election of a new assembly
The room goes quiet, not a sound is made
For this moment delegates have thought and prayed
The Task before them, so important a goal
Has the power to uplift and move the soul
One by one their names they do hear
Step by step they walk, steady and clear
With a kiss goodbye and a touch to their heart
Their vote goes in more beautiful than art
The voting continues and tears arise
The power of this election reaches the skies
For Baha'is, Baha'u'llah has given this gift
From His most excellent decree we must not drift
To vote and live in this most spiritual way
Will help to bring about the glorious New Day

Baha'i Economist

I had always imagined the world bank as taking place in some fiery boardroom in the nether regions of hell, chaired by Satan himself, surrounded by a staff of sniveling, groveling demons. But it turns out that at least one former member is a Baha'i, one Gregory Dahl. He is the author of "One World, One People," and on a morning business television show gives a brief summary of the importance of social service to globalization at,

<http://www.firstbusinessx.com/webex/0707/0702webexSocialResponsibility.html>

I stumbled upon the following service that may interest some of my readers. This breaks up public domain books into parcels and sends them at intervals by email, thus allowing you to read books you might never have otherwise. You can sign up at: http://www.dailylit.com/

I chose Thomas More's Utopia, but I found quickly enough that emailed books are not a good idea for me right now. But if you are on my Badi' list receiving my long essays every day chances are that this could work for you. What we really need is for somebody to break up Baha'i books and offer the same service, especially with the Writings. My friend Joe has long experience in Baha'i bookstores and was telling me a couple of weeks ago that there is one reliable constant: Baha'is will buy anything except the Holy Word. New books fly off the shelves, but the publishing trusts have even lowered prices for scripture to the point where they are selling it at a loss, but still the merchandise is not moving. Maybe if we spoon-feed ourselves with email scriptures we will establish better reading habits.

Back on the 20th of September, 2002 I wrote an essay called, "On the Parable of the Talents; Ethical Economics, Part IV" where I did a detailed analysis of the implications of the following reported statement by the Master:

"Perfection of work is man's greatest reward. When a man sees his work perfected and this perfection is the result of incessant labor and application he is the happiest man in the world. Work is the source of human happiness." (SW, Vol. 13, p. 152)

It turns out that scientists and medical experts have been making discoveries confirming this wisdom, according to the following report in a local newspaper.

"Want to be happier? Work longer hours," by Joanna Frketich
"You're in early. You stay late. The hours are piling up. Congratulations! Workaholics are less likely to suffer from depression. Statistics Canada reports that those working fewer than 30 hours a week suffered more depression than workers clocking more than 40 hours. Though nobody is quite sure why. Maybe because workaholics don't have time. "People working 40 hours meet the norms and expectations of society and feel they're doing something useful said Vish Baba, professor of management at McMaster University. "If I'm, working less hours, my sense of self worth is threatened. I might feel the skills I have are not wanted.
"Others suggest it has more to do with being passionate enough about your work to put in the extra time. They have a strong sense of mission to their work:' said Peter Bieling, manager of the mood disorders program at St. Joseph's Healthcare. "It's work that matters to them. Then again, the answer could be simply that people suffering from depression can't work as many hours. "Someone who is healthy is more likely to work longer hours," said Heather Gilmour, analyst in the health statistics division of Statistics Canada." (Hamilton Spectator, A1, 13 Jan, 2007)

Such is the problem with scientific confirmations, you never know if people are happier because they are working, or whether they are working because they are happier. There is an element of faith in both, in being happy and in working, which is why they are of such benefit. As Paul said, "Every man's work shall be made manifest." (1 Corinthians iii. 13)

Anyway, here is the excerpt from Al Gore's book that mentions two Baha'i quotes. It is about these quotes that I want to talk for the rest of today:

from: Earth in the Balance, pp. 261 - 262

One of the newest of the great universalist religions, Baha'i, founded in 1863 in Persia by Mirza Husayn Ali (Baha'u'llah), warns us not only to properly regard the relationship between humankind and nature but also the one between civilization and the environment. Perhaps because its guiding visions were formed during the period of accelerating industrialism, Baha'i seems to dwell on the spiritual implications of the great transformation to which it bore fresh witness:
"We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions."
And, again, from the Baha'i sacred writings comes this:
"Civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men."

In the first part of this, Mr. Gore cites a paragraph from a lesser known letter of the Guardian to an individual. The only source for this in the Ocean database is the UHJ Research Department's October 1989 "Conservation of the Earth's Resources" compilation (Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 63) under a section called "Approaches to Protecting the Environment." Here is the complete quote, only the first part of which Mr. Gore cited.

"We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.
"No movement in the world directs its attention upon both these aspects of human life and has full measures for their improvement, save the teachings of Baha'u'llah. And this is its distinctive feature. If we desire therefore the good of the world we should strive to spread those teachings and also practice them in our own life. Through them will the human heart be changed, and also our social environment provides the atmosphere in which we can grow spiritually and reflect in full the light of God shining through the revelation of Baha'u'llah."

This was written on the Guardian's behalf on 17 February, 1933. A second selection from a letter of the year before is included right after in this compilation,

"We need a change of heart, a reframing of all our conceptions and a new orientation of our activities. The inward life of man as well as his outward environment have to be reshaped if human salvation is to be secured." (1932)

This is a perfect capsule summary of the Baha'i understanding of salvation. Not wholly personal, not wholly social, but both, each in interplay with the other, like the flaming torches of a flaming-torch juggling juggler. This, as was said of Aristotle, is moderation taken to an extreme. Without moderation or wisdom to keep us out of the mire of contradictions, one sinks into the mud. Caught in that, the only thing one can do is stand paralyzed, immobile, perplexed. Around this same time the Guardian wrote in a letter intended for much broader consumption,

"Europe, hitherto regarded as the cradle of a highly-vaunted civilization, as the torch-bearer of liberty and the mainspring of the forces of world industry and commerce, stands bewildered and paralyzed at the sight of so tremendous an upheaval. Long-cherished ideals in the political no less than in the economic sphere of human activity are being severely tested under the pressure of reactionary forces on one hand and of an insidious and persistent radicalism on the other." (Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 31)

Reactionaries and radicals crush us like a vice; Yeats, in 1919 looking in horror at the same anarchic forces, used a different image, that of a falconer whose falcon flies so high that it can no longer hear his orders. "The center cannot hold ... the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Now science has actually documented how this destructive process works. Researchers such as Axelrod have found that perfectly rational behavior on an individual level leads to utter destruction, "mere anarchy" on a collective level, unless something gives, until someone sacrifices.

Al Gore has gained such renown because his film "An Inconvenient Truth" showed with charts and graphs how close is the deluge. In the words of the Master, "all the phenomena of (European) culture come to nothing." At the same time that the Guardian wrote all the above, he had also just come out with a revised translation of Secret of Divine Civilization, which includes the fateful passage I just alluded to:

"All the peoples of Europe, notwithstanding their vaunted civilization, sink and drown in this terrifying sea of passion and desire, and this is why all the phenomena of their culture come to nothing. Let no one wonder at this statement or deplore it. The primary purpose, the basic objective, in laying down powerful laws and setting up great principles and institutions dealing with every aspect of civilization, is human happiness; and human happiness consists only in drawing closer to the Threshold of Almighty God, and in securing the peace and well-being of every individual member, high and low alike, of the human race; and the supreme agencies for accomplishing these two objectives are the excellent qualities with which humanity has been endowed." (Abdu'l-Baha, Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 60)