Princrux

Reality, the Crux of Principle

By John Taylor; 2009 April 17, Jalal 08, 166 BE

The crux of principle is the pivot or transition point between search and oneness. Get this right and personal righteousness leads to unified action based on reality, which is to say, principle. Fail to do so and you get instead mere folly, self-deception and equivocation. A perfect example of the latter is the preposterous idea of counting up carbon "credits" and pretending that by taking such tallies based on purely personal choices and behavior we are doing our part to halt global warming.

On the surface, the logic of counting up carbon credits seems specious enough.

I can sin by taking an airplane flight, spewing hydrocarbons high up, right by the ozone layer, but if I pay an indulgence of a few dollars promised for tree planting I can "offset" the harm I did. This puts mathematics to use, which always gives an air of scientific rigor. Better still, you can trade offsets on a sort of stock market, which puts capitalism's holy of holies, market fundamentals, to work as well. How can you lose? But then again, financial wizardry like leveraged, brokered sub-prime debt was just as mathematical and was also traded in a free market. And look what that is doing to the world's economy.

George Monbiot refutes in detail the whole idea of carbon credits in his global warming classic, Heat. I suppose the reason people persist in counting "credits" and "offsets" is that this activity at least gets us involved in something that seems positive. It gives a comforting sense that we are not free riders, that we can participate, that there is something we can do personally to stop global warming. But logically it makes a fatal error. It conflates individual with collective conditions. Here is an example that makes this clear.

Imagine a village centuries ago located on the vast steppes of Asia threatened by the onrushing Mongol hoards of Genghis Khan. We know now that nothing short of a quantum leap in military technology combined with a stroke of political genius, including unification with many other villages, could have saved that village from certain defeat, death and destruction. Nothing else, no matter how clever, would help. Imagine somebody coming to these villagers and proposing a scheme of "peace credits" where they count up nice things they can do that contribute to peace, little things like smiling at somebody when you feel like frowning. Would such a plan, however nice sounding, do anything but distract them from a clear and present danger?

No, if we want to do something to stop global climate destabilization, we cannot afford to confuse individual good with group salvation. To solve a problem that affects the entire planet we have to recognize the problem, work out a solution quickly, and do whatever is necessary to carry it out. I am not saying that individual behavior is totally irrelevant. But those villagers had an urgent problem that they had to solve immediately, or they would all soon be dead or enslaved. And so do we, or at best we will respond to this crisis inadequately and suffer mass starvation and post-apocalyptic chaos.

All this explains why you see the word "reality" repeated so often in Abdu'l-Baha's exposition of these first two principles, search for truth and oneness of mankind. Reality, as I said at the outset, is the crux between the first two principles. Ignore it and you might as well count fairies or carbon offsets or peace points. In the last month of His stay in America, Abdu'l-Baha praised this confrontation with what is real as the spirit of the age,

"Praise be to God! We are living in this most radiant century  wherein human perceptions have developed and investigations of real foundations characterize mankind. Individually and collectively man is proving and penetrating into the reality of outer and inner conditions. Therefore, it has come to pass that we are renouncing all that savors of blind imitation, and impartially and independently investigating truth." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, pp. 443-444)

Unfortunately, then as now, religious thought does not confront reality with the same sincerity and integrity as scientific thinking. The principles of science are widely understood and applied outside the areas of expertise of scientists themselves. Not so with religious principle.

The Master therefore continues,

"Let us understand what constitutes the reality of the divine religions. If a Christian sets aside traditionary (sic) forms and blind imitation of ceremonials and investigates the reality of the Gospels, he will discover that the foundation principles of the teachings of Christ were mercy, love, fellowship, benevolence, altruism, the resplendence or radiance of divine bestowals, acquisition of the breaths of the Holy Spirit and oneness with God." (444)

Comenius, I think, understood the principles of religion. He held that reform begins in the self, which is by nature a reflection of God. God is the reality, and sincerity is when we reflect God in the real. This perception is expressed in divine perfections and good works, balanced by severe and continual self-appraisal. He wrote:

"You must attend to these virtuous practices and see that you take them seriously, and examine yourself every day as ruthlessly as if you were at the bar of justice."

In the time of Comenius, science was not nearly as far advanced in applying principles as now. As an educator he therefore found both faith and science dismissed as bases for reform. Neither gave much of an example of unified action, they protested. Comenius responded that the reason this is so is that, like the villagers on the Stepp, the right questions were not being asked.

"If you protest that those who investigate nature, the Scriptures, and the things of the intellect are the very people who disagree most, my answer will be in the words of the Apostle, that they ask, and receive not, because they ask amiss (James IV, 3). Therefore, also, those who seek, and find not, are seeking amiss for something which is not available, or conversely, they are not seeking for truth in truth, but for their own pleasures or for truth in some other colour; and then it is no wonder that they do not see what is there, but something different or in a different form." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 31, pp. 121-122)

This demonstrates why some personal search falls short. Instead of truth, we seek our own slant on it. But without collective vision, action is impracticable. We all have to see things from one point of view. Yes, there is room for personal style, but in order to act there must be common vision of a universal reality. As Socrates put it,

"Where God is our teacher we all come to think alike. For example, all agree that it is better to wear warm clothes in winter..." (Xenophon, Oeconomicus 15:3)

--
John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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