Emerging voices: Target, respond passionately against "politics of division, fear"

This Observer editorial from Guardian.co.uk says it right about what's needed to counter the worldwide trend towards increased religious intolerance and xenophobia (what it calls "the politics of division and fear"):--

Burning the Qur'an: All faiths must fight against the forces of bigotry

We should not tolerate the antics of people such as Pastor Jones
________________________________________

Those who admire [the American] nation's historical commitment to the rights of man find it distressing to see the burning of holy books and the banning of houses of worship creeping into political discourse.

That distress should be a warning against complacency [in] Britain [, which] is not immune to virulent Islamophobia, as the English Defence League and the British National party prove. Elsewhere in Europe, mainstream politics is struggling to accommodate popular unease about a growing and visible Muslim minority. In France and Spain, this manifests itself as illiberal secularism, with bans on Islamic dress; in Switzerland, it shows up as a prohibition on minarets; and across the Continent opposition to Turkish membership of the EU is laced with anxiety about a mass mingling of Muslims and Christians that might ensue.

...What defines [these trends] is an angry, defensive reaction against an imagined threat to identity: national, secular or Christian.
This is the politics of division and fear and it demands a response, equivalent in passion, from the politics of solidarity and hope.

Read the full article here.


Dicta:

The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of patriotic arrogance; the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud; the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime; the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures; the weakening of family solidarity; the laxity in parental control; the lapse into luxurious indulgence; the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce; the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press... —these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish.

(Shoghi Effendi, World Order, 187-88)

Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I discovered in the Bahá'í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often denied and misunderstood: Unity instead of strife, Hope instead of condemnation, Love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.

(Queen Marie of Rumania, Quoted in Shoghi Effendi, World Order, 93)

Image source is here.

Emerging voices: Target, respond passionately against "politics of division, fear"

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Turn of the wheel

Imbibing the moment

Every day is a fresh day
beckoning a new fragrance
to nostrils conditioned to inhale it
from the sundry manifestations
of life's swiftly changing visage.


- A.B.
(On the occasion of a loved one's anniversary)

Dicta:

Verily the most necessary thing is contentment under all circumstances; by this one is preserved from morbid conditions and lassitude.    

(Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era 108)

Anybody can be happy in the state of comfort, ease, health, success, pleasure and joy; but if one will be happy and contented in the time of trouble, hardship and prevailing disease, it is the proof of nobility. ...

[T]his earthly world is narrow, dark and frightful, rest cannot be imagined and happiness really is non-existent, everyone is captured in the net of sorrow, and is day and night enslaved by the chain of calamity; there is no one who is at all free or at rest from grief and affliction. Still, as the believers of God are turning to the limitless world, they do not become very depressed and sad by disastrous calamities—there is something to console them; but the others in no way have anything to comfort them at the time of calamity. Whenever a calamity and a hardship occurs, they become sad and disappointed, and hopeless of the bounty and the mercy of the Glorious Lord.    

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablets 263-4)

Never lose thy trust in God. Be thou ever hopeful, for the bounties of God never cease to flow upon man. If viewed from one perspective they seem to decrease, but from another they are full and complete. Man is under all conditions immersed in a sea of God's blessings. Therefore, be thou not hopeless under any circumstances, but rather be firm in thy hope.

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections #178)

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Turn of the wheel

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Life as rhythm

 
Here a video I enjoyed, followed by a commentary on it from the perspective of its being a work of art. It touches on a theme I have been reflecting over recently - that of seeing life as a rhythm that one needs to tune into - the rhythm of success, work and effectiveness in the path of God. On this path there can be no misstep; one will always be guided! All that matters is the effectiveness - essentially the rhythm - of one's actions in service to humanity. "Time does not stop, does not wait," writes the Universal House of Justice,

With every passing hour a fresh affliction strikes at a distracted humanity. Dare we linger? ...

[O]ne thing above all else is necessary: to act, to act now, and to continue to act.

Our heartfelt plea at the Holy Threshold on behalf of us all is that we may be... richly confirmed in whatever we do towards meeting the urgent aim of the... Plan at so fate-laden a moment in human history.

(Ridván message 155 B.E./1998, §§15-17)

Bahá'u'lláh, moreover, states, "[H]esitate not, though it be for less than a moment, in the service of His Cause." (Gleanings 43)


My challenge has been, in part, to view my actions not as disjointed service projects performed in separate chunks of time-periods, but as part of a larger continuum of service where all the different actions are integrated and connected, without the disjunctive pauses (as in excessive/frequent meditation breaks) in between.

It has much to do with having trust (that one is on the right course and is doing the right thing) and letting go (of any fears of inadequacy and of my feelings of unworthiness). Now, let's see where this can lead us! Here the video:--

On the video as Art - some thoughts

Life (and everything in it) is a creation, a work of art so to speak, and can, as art, necessarily only be judged by its own merits, on its own terms. This goes for the video as well. Each person will see something different in it.

Art consists of a constellation of elements, arranged in a particular/inviolable way. If dismembered, if one element of this complex entity is removed, is it any longer the original art?

Art is art. One element cannot be taken from it and analyzed out of context. It's a constellation. Every word in existence carries an infinitude of spiritual meaning. When combined in a certain way, the beauty/meaning of the individual words enhance the beauty/meaning of the others. 'Abdu'l-Bahá says, "All art is a gift from the Holy Spirit." He also says that evil doesn't actually have any independent existence (it is only the absence of goodness/beauty/art, if you will).

Since all creation, every life, every expression and every creative product is a unique piece of art - infrangible - our challenge lies in recognizing each as an independent such existence and finding the beauty/meaning in it, however strange/untrue/gnarled it may appear on the face of it (with certain exceptions, of course, such as hatred, oppression, discrimination, inequality, war, drug-abuse, murder, genocide, etc., or sheer carelessness, for that matter, which are all anathema to the Spirit).

Here are some passages from the Writings that may relate to this theme:

Gazing with the eye of God, [the true seeker] will perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discover in all things the … evidences of an everlasting Manifestation.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Iqan 196)

It is related that His Holiness Christ--May my life be a sacrifice to Him!--one day, accompanied by His apostles, passed by the corpse of a dead animal. One of them said: 'How putrid has this animal become!' The other exclaimed: 'How it is deformed!' A third cried out: 'What a stench! How cadaverous looking!' But His Holiness Christ said: 'Look at its teeth! How white they are!' Consider, that He did not look at all at the defects of that animal; nay, rather, He searched well until He found the beautiful white teeth. He observed only the whiteness of the teeth and overlooked entirely the deformity of the body, the dissolution of its organs and the bad odour.

"This is the attribute of the children of the Kingdom. This is the conduct and the manner of the real Bahais (Baha'is)..."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Tablet to Dr. Skinner, in Lights of Guidance #312)

[I]n the world of existence two persons unanimous in all grades [of thought] and all beliefs cannot be found. ‘The ways unto God are as the number of the breaths of [His] creatures’ is a mysterious truth, and ‘To every [people] We have appointed a [separate] rite’ is one of the subtleties of the Qur’án."

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Narrative 91-2)

Eagle sculpture in the gardens outside the Shrine of the Báb

Photo Copyright Bahá'í International Community. View here.

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Life as rhythm

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