And then there were eight

Last weekend, the first Bahá’í House of Worship in South America was dedicated, in a ceremony in Santiago, Chile. Friends of mine sent me these photos. Somehow, the building suggests something organic rather than man-made. The outside of the building consists of nine “sails” or “wings”, which are made of thousands of glass pieces mounted on aluminium frames, with panels of translucent stone on the inside. (The second picture shows the inside of the dome.) The different parts of the building have been subjected to seismological tests, as earthquakes are relatively frequent in the Andes, and indeed the foundations have already been tested by the real thing, in 2015!

As part of the dedication event, a large concert hall was hired, in which South Americans of many different cultures and traditions performed. The prayers and singing were in many different languages, and people attended from 110 different countries.

There is now a House of Worship (“Temple”) in each continent. The proper name of the House of Worship is the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, which means “Dawning place of the praise of God”. Each one has nine sides and nine gardens, with nine paths leading to the nine doors. This symbolically represents the idea that all paths ultimately lead to the same one, multi-faceted, truth.

Every Bahá’í House of Worship is open to people of all backgrounds, all castes, races and creeds for private prayer, and there are also “services” which include readings from the Scriptures of all the world religions. No sermons are preached, and there are no musical instruments other than human voices. Although every House of Worship is open to everybody, each one was built only with money from the Bahá’ís.

Among the Houses of Worship already built, I am particularly intrigued by the one for Central America, which is in Panama. There are Native American designs on the walls, and as Panama is a tropical country, there are no windows. It has been built in such a way that the air can move through, but the rain does not get in. It also means that birds can fly through!

This is the Bahá’í House of Worship in New Delhi, India, which is based on the design of the lotus flower. The lotus is a form of water lily, and is regarded as a symbol of purity. However polluted the mud may be at the bottom of the lake, and however filthy the water, the lotus blossom on the surface opens out pure and untainted by its surroundings. The House of Worship has been nicknamed the Lotus Temple (“Lotus Mandir”). An Indian gentleman was questioning recently why we had a picture of the Lotus Temple in our Bahá’í exhibition (here in England). When told that it was a Bahá’í building, he refused to believe that. “It is not a Bahá’í temple. It is for everybody. It is for people of all religions.” “Yes”, I replied, “the Bahá’ís built it so that…” “No, no. It is not a Bahá’í temple! It belongs to everybody!” He had definitely understood the spirit which underlay the building of this temple!

Technically, none of these Houses of Worship (there are now eight) is actually finished, because there should be ancillary buildings as part of the institution of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained, “The temple, wherein each may worship God in his own way, is to be surrounded by such accessories as a hospital, pilgrim-house, school for orphans and university for the study of higher sciences.” As there are still only a few million Bahá’ís in the world, the majority of them in developing countries, finance for these is still some way off.

The next stage is the beginning of construction of national and local Houses of Worship, in countries where there are a large number of Bahá’ís. The first two national ones will be in Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are also five smaller local ones to be built in different countries: in Cambodia (this is an impression of the building in Cambodia), Colombia, India (in Bihar, over 500 miles from Delhi), Kenya and Vanuatu. In each case, the area has a significant and active Bahá’í population, who will make good use the building. Perhaps my friends will be able to attend more dedication ceremonies in the future!


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For anyone interested in the construction of the temple in Chile visit: http://news.bahai.org/story/975

Work in the spirit of service

Another chapter opened recently in the ongoing saga of multi-national corporations and the payment of tax. The European Commission demanded that Apple (the technology developer) pay €12 billion to the government of Ireland in back taxes. Apple seemed unhappy with this request, and the Irish government was initially uncertain how to react, as it felt it had gained advantage from the arrangement with Apple.

The problem is that large companies, who provide goods and services in a number of countries, find ways of avoiding the payment of tax at a reasonable level, comparable to what is paid by other companies or by private citizens. They amass huge resources, and have more money than do some small countries. In a sense, they operate “above the law”, because they choose which laws to subject themselves to, by choosing which country they claim to be based in. The situation is such that poor countries and small island nations are tempted to offer lower tax rates, just so as to attract some economic activity into their territories.

What is the purpose of taxation? The tax that is collected from people and companies pays for hospitals, roads, schools, police and so on. The multi-national companies receive the benefit from these. Their employees are educated in schools paid for by taxes. The companies use the roads to transport materials and goods. The employees may well benefit from public health systems, and so on. It therefore seems fair that, as they benefit from public services, the companies should contribute to the taxation system which pays for them.

The governments of the world are struggling to find ways of coping with the activities of these multinational companies. Fundamentally, each of the companies has an executive who can take clear decisions. The world, however, still does not. Part of the solution, therefore, must be some form of world government or world authority which can ensure that there are no tax havens, and that tax will be paid by “multi-national” corporations into a “multi-national” system.

But this is not the only change that has to be made. A change in the spirit of commercial enterprise is also necessary. Honesty and trustworthiness need to be regarded as essential qualities which should shine out from every individual and from every business. These qualities will themselves benefit everyone involved. Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “The eyes of this Wronged One are turned towards naught save trustworthiness, truthfulness, purity, and all that profiteth men." It should no longer be necessary for businesses to employ lawyers and accountants to try to find ways of hiding wealth, nor for the authorities to employ yet more lawyers and accountants to try to discover where it is hidden.

If the Bahá’í principle of seeing mankind as one family were accepted, this also would greatly reduce tax avoidance. People would not wish to cheat their own relatives, their fellow human beings!

Another fundamental principle of Bahá’u’lláh is that work should be performed in a spirit of service to others. He said further that when it is performed in this spirit it is a form of worship. The reason why any employment exists is simply that other humans need this work to be done, so the very performance of work is, logically, a service to others. A realisation of this truth should be coupled with a change of heart, and “work in a spirit of service” should become the measure of all human activity. Many multi-national companies would do well to realise this. Producing or providing more useful telephones, computers or browsers can be seen as service to others. So can providing tasty coffee. However, paying people to try to find tax loopholes can not.

We are not alone

Within each constellation, the brightest-looking star is called Alpha, the second brightest is referred to as Beta, and so on. When it came to measuring how far away from us each star might be, the brightest star in the constellation of Centaur (“Alpha Centauri”) seemed to be the nearest to our Sun, at “only” 4.2 light years in distance.

When astronomers tried to learn more about Alpha Centauri, it was discovered that there are actually two stars operating together as a binary system, and these are known as Alpha Centauri A and (you guessed it) Alpha Centauri B. But books usually still refer to Alpha Centauri as if it were one star.

In 1915, the Scottish astronomer Robert Innes discovered another star nearby, too dim to be seen with the naked eye. When the distance was calculated, it was found to be nearer to our Sun than the Alpha Centauri stars are! So, although we can see several thousand stars with the naked eye, the nearest one is simply invisible to us. I find this quite exciting, a red dwarf star (yes, really) that is our nearest, but secret, neighbour! Its name, “Proxima” Centauri, actually means “nearest”. And yet, although this star has been known for over a hundred years, many sources still state that “Alpha Centauri is our nearest star”.

Proxima Centauri is a less massive star than our Sun, slightly older and with a lower surface temperature. And yet, this month, a new discovery has been announced. Our nearest star has a planet circling it, now named “Proxima b” (artist's impression above). This planet is at the right distance from the star to enable it to have liquid water, which is important because many scientists believe that water is essential for life to exist. The zone in which this sort of planet should exist has been nicknamed “the Goldilocks Zone” – not too hot, not too cold, but just right!

Writing before Proxima Centauri itself had even been discovered, Bahá’u’lláh said, “Every… star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures…” The life of a planet, and indeed of a star, stretches over billions of years, and it is perfectly possible that different planets go through different stages in the evolution of life at vastly different times. So even if “Proxima b” has had/will have life, it may not necessarily exist there now. What the discovery of “Proxima b” does do is show that the presence of planets around stars is even more of a feature than previously realised, and that theoretically inhabitable planets are also more common than was realised. Crucially, to have habitable planets, the star does not have to resemble our Sun. This hugely increases the number of stars which may support habitable planets, and therefore the chances that we are not alone.

Certain scientists are already considering new theoretical ways of speedier space travel, essential if we are to travel to the nearest star systems. While that research is under way, it would be wise to sort out conditions on our own planet, ensuring that we are in a fit state to set off to visit the neighbours! Firstly, we need to establish some sort of genuine co-ordination at the planetary level. That would be greatly assisted by the choice of a world shared language. We need to abandon the practices of various kinds of warfare, including terrorism – no other planet will want us exporting violence to their worlds. If we want to have anything positive to offer our planetary neighbours, then we need to improve our economic systems, and ensure that everyone has an acceptable standard of living, before we start trying to visit other planets! Bahá’u’lláh wrote that “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation”. Let us work on overcoming the world’s immediate problems so that we can present a positive and friendly face to the neighbours.

We come together as one

Thousands of athletes and sports fans have arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the 31^st Olympic Games. A rainbow of peoples from 206 countries and territories will be participating in a rainbow of different sports. In some ways, it is a glimpse of the future, the endlessly diverse family of man united in a common enterprise.

The lead-up to the Games has also been a mirror to the challenges and trials of our age. Rio has shown us the need for planning and for concerted action, but it has also shown the need for just and considerate treatment of the poor. It has shown the need for better disease control, and has highlighted the disastrous consequences of crime. In some sports we have also been shown the fundamental need for trustworthiness to underlie everyone’s actions, and we have also been shown that an excessive nationalism plays a part in undermining trustworthiness itself.

Alongside the deliberate portrayal of human diversity, and the need to cherish and nurture our minorities, Brazil’s opening ceremony chose to highlight the environment, and the need to protect it. The ideal expressed was that we should be at peace with the planet. The Olympic rings, made from trees, were seen to grow from seeds, and each athlete was given a seed from one of Brazil’s tree species, communicating the idea of replanting some of what has been lost.

Although the Bahá’í community is better known for its efforts to unite the religions and to unite mankind, the need to preserve the world’s ecology is also part of the Bahá’í vision. The Bahá’í writings say: “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…”

In 1992, Rio de Janeiro was the venue for a huge Summit and Global Forum on preserving the Earth’s resources, and the Bahá’ís had a very visible presence there. The Bahá’í community supplied a large number of the volunteers and contributed to the debates within the Summit. The Bahá’ís designed and created a Peace Monument, as a contribution to the Earth Summit. This is in the shape of an hour-glass, into which representatives from each of the countries placed a small quantity of their soil. Engraved upon the monument are the words of Bahá’u’lláh: “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.”

The Olympics represent something special in human life. Every few years we remind ourselves, through the holding of the Games, that we are all endowed with different talents and capabilities. We can, and should, come together as one human family – not just to show the great diversity in the human race, but to celebrate our oneness.


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In a previous blog, I have touched upon the related subject of climate change – (see “A climate of change” [August 2015]); and on the subject of trustworthiness – (see “You can cheat people, but you cannot cheat nature” [February 2016]).

A question of balance

The number of women in leading roles in the political world again seems to be on the rise. In the United Kingdom, recent political events have paved the way for Theresa May to become the second female Prime Minister (from a final choice of two women), while Angela Eagle made a bid for the leadership of the official Opposition. Meanwhile, in the United States of America, there is a real possibility, for the first time, of a woman becoming president.

The equality of men and women has been a major principle of the Bahá’í Faith since its inception. In the early history of the birth of this new religion, the poetess Tahirih allowed herself to become the first martyr for women’s rights. Her final words, before her cruel death, were said to be: “You may kill me as soon as you like, but you will not stop the emancipation of women.”

When Bahá’u’lláh‘s son, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, visited London in 1912, a number of well-known suffragettes came to meet Him. They were well aware of the Bahá’í belief that women would obtain parity with men in all fields of endeavour and accomplishment. The famous Emmaline Pankhurst visited ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and referred to Him as a “prophet”. He replied, with a broad smile, “Oh no! I am a man, like you.”

 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, 100 years ago: “If women were given the same advantages as men, their capacity being the same, the result would be the same. In fact, women have a superior disposition to men; they are more receptive, more sensitive, and their intuition is more intense. The only reason of their present backwardness in some directions is because they have not had the same educational advantages as men.” The Bahá’í Writings also stress that the education of girls is even more important than that of boys. This is because most girls will become mothers, and the mother is the first teacher of the child.

Bahá’ís see men and women as like the two wings of a bird – both must be equally strong in order for the bird to fly successfully. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that, “The happiness of mankind will be realised when women and men co-ordinate and advance equally, for each is the complement and helpmeet of the other.”

 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave us a very clear vision of the future: “The world in the past has been ruled by force, and man has dominated over woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body and mind. But the scales are already shifting - force is losing its weight; and mental alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which woman is strong, are gaining ascendancy. Hence the new age will be an age less masculine, and more permeated with the feminine ideals - or, to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilisation will be more properly balanced.”


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In order to achieve the necessary balance between masculine and feminine elements in the writing, Ann (my wife) and I worked together on this blog post.

                

We are all one

Trish Adudu is a presenter and producer on British television screens. She also works on local radio, based in Coventry, where she lives. Last week she was racially abused by a person on a bicycle, who turned his unwanted attention from a young Asian man to her. The cyclist used upsetting and insulting language, and told her to, “Go home!”, although I doubt that he knew where her house is. (Perhaps he actually meant that she should go back to Bristol, where she was born.) As she is a local personality, the story of her experience was soon aired on both radio and television, but apparently it is reflecting a sudden rise in such abuse in many parts of Britain.

The recent referendum in the United Kingdom, in which slightly more than half of the voters opted to leave the European Union, highlighted during the campaign the significant numbers of eastern Europeans who have recently migrated to Britain. This was all to do with managing migration and it certainly had nothing to do with the colour of people’s skin. However, the “Leave” victory seems to have emboldened those who have a racist view of the world to openly express their opinions.

Meanwhile in the United States of America, there have been a rising number of incidents in which people from racial minorities have lost their lives at the hands of police officers, and just recently a sad retaliation. The immediate causes of the trouble may be different, but in perceiving us all as so different from one another, the underlying problem is actually the same.

In the Bahá’í view, these occurrences demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the biology of the human race. Bahá’u’lláh stated, and science seems to agree, that all human beings are descended from the same original stock. Bahá’u’lláh saw mankind as inter-related, and as one people: “O people of the world, ye are all the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch.” In effect, human beings are one extended family. (It has been calculated that the most distant relationship we can have with another human being is fiftieth cousin, without any exception whatsoever!) The Bahá’í community itself exists in virtually every territory in the world, and includes members of most minority groups. There are also special safeguards for minorities within the community. For example, if there is a tie in a Bahá’í election, and if one of the people is from a minority background, they will be the one elected.

Elsewhere in the Bahá’í Writings, humanity is likened to the different-coloured flowers of one garden. In a garden, the beauty is caused by the juxtaposition of flowers of various shapes, sizes and colours. A garden in which every flower is identical is simply not pleasing to the eye. In the same way, human beings are of different sizes, different colours and differing appearance. The Bahá’í watchword is “unity in diversity”, and this is one of the reasons why inter-racial marriage has always been encouraged within the Bahá’í community. In the USA, Bahá’ís have always been at the forefront of promoting racial unity.

This understanding of the varied but united nature of the human race renders all nationalism and racism rather meaningless. Bahá’u’lláh said that, “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” We should be loving one another, and supporting one another. Within a family, it is understood that richer members can spare some time and money to help those who have less, and help them through difficulties. This is what should be happening on a global scale, with richer neighbourhoods and territories helping to build up the poorer ones. A greater sense of economic justice and co-operation would greatly decrease the hatred and suspicion in the world.

Love for all humanity has to be the answer: “If you desire with all your heart, friendship with every race on earth, your thought, spiritual and positive, will spread; it will become the desire of others, growing stronger and stronger, until it reaches the minds of all men.”    



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In January, 2016, after I had a vivid dream, I wrote another blog post on racism. It is called “I have a dream”.

               

For many are called, but few are chosen

For many months now, people in the United States of America have been involved in a tortuous process which will (eventually) culminate in the election of one individual as President of the entire country. Two rival parties vie for public support, although each one in reality contains a wide range of opinions and viewpoints. Within each party, a ruthless process of elimination takes place, as candidates realise, one by one, that there is no realistic chance of them securing their party’s nomination. There are few rules as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour, and a huge amount of money has to be spent on advertising, television slots, literature and the like. It is therefore clearly an advantage to be wealthy at the start of the process.

In the United Kingdom, the vote to leave the European Union, against the advice of almost every political leader, has brought about a severe storm within each of the two foremost parties. Within the party in government, there is to be a long drawn-out contest for a new leader, not as bruising as the American one, but with some similarities. Within Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, no vacancy for leader officially exists, but there is a huge rebellion within the Parliamentary Party, which may also lead to a similar drawn-out internal process.

Elections within the Bahá’í community are organised on a quite different basis. For a start, there are no candidates. No-one puts themselves forward. Within each town or village, the Bahá’ís come together once a year for a meeting organised on spiritual lines. After prayer, and some short readings encouraging the election of people with the best combination of “recognised ability” and of “selfless devotion”, each person simply writes down the names of nine Bahá’ís within that town/village on their ballot paper. The nine people who receive the most votes are automatically considered to have been elected as the Local Spiritual Assembly. Of course, there are further details, but in essence that is how it is done. The Bahá’ís do not even discuss between themselves the qualities of other individuals. The election is considered as between the voter, his or her conscience, and God!

The result, hopefully, is a harmonious process in which no-one knows who has voted for whom, and in which no cliques can form. Hopefully, the nine people elected will include reasonable and moderate people, whereas an adversarial system can sometimes favour more stubborn people, with strong opinions.

“Well, yes,” you may say. “It is easy for a small group of people who know each other. It wouldn’t work for the whole country.” Fair point. What happens, in the election of the National Spiritual Assembly, is that the Bahá’ís in each area vote for one person, who becomes their delegate and goes to a national convention. The delegate, once at the convention, will again be able to vote for nine people, again without any hindrance from the procedures of nominations, canvassing, etc. And the odd thing is – it works! Every vote is cast for someone, because of their positive qualities, rather than, as sometimes happens elsewhere, against someone, because of their less attractive qualities or their predetermined ideas.

Democracy means “government by the people”, but the actual system for achieving that varies widely from country to country. In the United States, the President is elected separately from the Congress. The result is that he (or she?) is charged with running the country, but does not necessarily have the legislature behind him (or her). In the United Kingdom, this never happens, because the person charged with organising the day-to-day running of the country, the Prime Minister, sits in parliament and needs to have the support of that Parliament (well, a majority of it), otherwise he/she falls out of power. This last situation is effectively what has just happened.

In the Bahá’í system, both the Local Spiritual Assembly and the National Spiritual Assembly are automatically elected afresh every year, so there should always be some renewal alongside a certain continuity, so confrontation and opposition are simply not required as part of the system at all. There are no competing groups or parties, so everyone naturally pulls together.

Abdu’l-Bahá, who visited the U.S.A. in 1912, hoped that the American democracy would become glorious in spiritual matters, even as it was aspiring to develop in material ways. He predicted that it would eventually be America which would start the process of instituting a world-wide and permanent peace. It is my personal hope that the people of the United States of America will one day have a government which will be able to further the causes of peace, understanding and justice in the world. And in Britain, which has now stepped back from membership of an ever-closer union of nations, the election of tolerant and far-sighted leaders is every bit as important…