“Good morning Houston. It looks to be a good day down there....”

As the twentieth century draws to a close, two historical processes are sharply converging: the first is a series of revolutionary changes which are awakening the peoples of the world to their common humanity and to the earth as a single homeland; the second is a rapid unfolding of a new pattern of society created by Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant which has taken root in every corner of the globe and among all the earth’s people. These two processes come together at a moment when a dramatic change in perception has imposed itself on the public mind.

An array of unresolved problems have combined to create a crisis of planetary dimension. Suddenly there is no aspect of human civilisation that has not found itself imperilled. Ambitious political theories which once claimed to understand the crisis have been literally swept away. The machinery of the nation state has been everywhere overwhelmed by problems global in scope. Suddenly the principle of collective action, once a pious hope, has become the life line of the world.

“The world is our garden and together we must cultivate it. This week at Rio we have made a start, beyond Rio we must continue to carry it through; Mr. Chairman for our generation and for future generations there can be no other way.”

It is no exaggeration to say that the greatest achievements of the twentieth century are those related to collective action. These include an unprecedented decision by the community of nations to act together in suppressing aggression, international agreements to establish global environmental standards, the enlistment of the world’s heads of state in protecting the rights of children, world-wide relief efforts to aid the hungry and the homeless, and collective action based on the conviction that the world’s seas, the Antarctic, endangered species and the earth’s atmosphere all represent the common heritage of mankind. But even these arduous and well-meaning efforts are falling far short of the challenge; only a unifying power can harness the available technological resources of mankind, only a truly global authority can apply them with the necessary courage and determination. Ultimately the world’s commitment to collective action will have to address the challenge enunciated almost 60 years ago by the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith: “Every system short of the unification of the human race has been tried, repeatedly tried and found wanting”.

As the world’s leaders and populations struggle with this inescapable reality, the implications of the unfolding mission of Bahá’u’lláh will become steadily more apparent to everyone. At the heart of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission lies a new covenant between God and humankind. As the peoples of the world accept the sovereignty of God, a new race of men will take up its destiny on this earth. The struggling nucleus of this new human family has already emerged, what Bahá’u’lláh has called the people of Bahá.

More than just a community or an organisation the Bahá’ís represent the arrowhead of the evolution of human consciousness. As such, we have a profound responsibility not only to act but to understand. “0 people of Bahá, be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed”. What are these virtues with which our emerging community is endowed ? The most important is unity. Unity is the next stage of the evolution of our planet; the goal of centuries of human evolution. Bahá’u’lláh promises, “so powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth”. The Bahá’í community is not only united, it embraces the entire variety of the human family. Without distinction it is truly universal and it has been imbued with a new set of moral values, a new ethos for living in an age of global integration. Bahá’u’lláh asks, “Is it within human power to effect so complete a transformation ?”

The challenges of today call for an unprecedented act of will. The community created by Bahá’u’lláh has demonstrated the capacity, not only to set itself enormously ambitious goals, but to persist in achieving those goals. Only a century after the inauguration of the Covenant, it has become the most widespread organised people on earth. And if the century and a half of sacrifices by the Iranian Bahá’ís demonstrates anything, it is the evidence that the People of Bahá possess the necessary reserves of endurance that today’s challenges will require.

“All praise be to God who hath adorned the world with an ornament and arrayed with a vesture which can be despoiled by no earthly power.”

To a world torn by conflict and increasingly desperate for solutions, the Bahá’í Community offers convincing evidence that humanity, in all its diversity, can live and work as one people on a common global homeland. But the endowments of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant come most sharply into focus in the operation of the administrative order. There is no achievement in human history that can compare with the system of group consultation and decision-making that the Covenant has brought into existence throughout the world: the network of local spiritual assemblies guiding and nurturing communities at the grass roots level, and the national spiritual assemblies co-ordinating and assisting these activities in 165 countries around the globe.

And now we understand why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so many years ago said that 1963 would witness the foundation of world peace; because in that year, on the slope of Mt. Carmel, an institution came into existence that has no parallel in the history of our planet.

It has been envisioned in the marvellous words of Isaiah, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it. For out of Zion shall go forth the law.” And in the prayer of Jesus Christ, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven”.

What the establishment of the Universal House of Justice means is that Bahá’u’lláh has endowed a global community, a microcosm of humanity itself, with a capacity to think and act as one soul in one body. There is no greater testimony to the power of the Covenant which He inaugurated exactly 100 years ago.

“Blessed art thou, O earth, for thou hast been made the footstool of thy God, and been chosen as the seat of His mighty throne.”

Questions:

1. What are the two great historical processes taking place in the world today?
2. List the nature and effect of the first one of the processes above.
3. What has become the life-line of the world?
4. What has the greatest achievements of this century been linked with? Name a few of these achievements.
5. Have the above achievements been adequate? Why?
6. What is the challenge which Shoghi Effendi enunciated almost 60 years ago to the world? (Learn this verse!)
7. What is a covenant?
8. What is the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh?
9. What is the result of accepting and understanding the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh?
10. At what stage of growth is the Bahá’í community now?
11. What are the virtues with which the Bahá’í community is endowed?
12. What visible results have the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh had in the world so far?
13. When did the Universal House of Justice come into being ?
14. What is the significance of the Universal House of Justice?
15. Who was Isaiah and what does his prophecy refer to?
16. Recite the Lords Prayer. What does the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven mean?
17. How do the Bahá’í administrative institutions function?