On Regional Councils

The week of June 11^th 2012 is a historic week in the USA. The Bahá’í community has grown in many aspects. Up until now the continental US was divided into six regions. But each region is now so large in the number of members and activities, in the number of active agents of change, and in scope and diversity of activities and circumstances that new arrangements are called for.

Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, had indicated that in future, as the Faith expands in scope and diversity, the Universal House of Justice will bring about new institutions in response to the demands of growth itself. So some 15 years ago, in 1997 the head of the Faith created Regional Bahá’í Councils. These Councils are executive arms of the National Assembly and are normally elected by members of Local Spiritual Assemblies. The main functions of these institutions is related to growth and the process of community building. Now the US National Spiritual Assembly, in consultation with the Continental Board of Counsellors, and with warm encouragement of the Universal House of Justice, has called for the formation of 10 Regional Bahá’í Councils. Members of some 1200 Assemblies, from as many cities, towns or counties across this country will cast their votes this week, in quiet reverence, and in a rarified atmosphere of detachment and service. There will then be some 174 such administrative bodies in the Bahá’í world.

In a sense this represents a new beginning. It is a milestone marking along the path of progress. No one is concerned about who might get elected. No one is anxious about what might happen. There are no winners or losers, because there is no contest. No one is running for anything. And those who will receive a call to inform them of their election, and to ask them if they are able to give the time for such service, will often wonder if they are truly qualified for such a task. This is a new model of governance for human society.

In the Old World Order the person who is elected leaves his mark on the institution. In the New World Order we can say that it is mostly the opposite, it is the institution that leaves its mark on the individuals who are elected. First the person is humbled, then he or she feels overwhelmed. The task is large and complex, and the path for learning is wide. And you have to rise up to this level while carrying on with your normal profession.

Each new member now has to engage more intensely in his or her own neighborhood to accelerate his learning about the dynamics of community building. If previously he has completed his study of a sequence of courses offered by the training institute, and only occasionally he had tutored a course, now he has to engage more and deeper. He will have to personally be involved in a number of core activities at the level of the neighborhood, and in visiting homes of others, and in learning to carry on meaningful and distinctive conversations, and establishing friendships based on shared understanding. He or she will have to definitely animate a group of junior youth, to teach a class for children, and be engaged both in an educational process and in cycles of activity, which are after all two perspectives of the same reality. 

It is such personal experience that sharpens the ability to read reality, to analyze conditions of a larger number of clusters and to serve the needs of the community on a larger scale.

All this will work out well since those who are elected will have to have the humility to recognize that they are not the central ornaments of the Cause, that they did not seek to serve in such a capacity, but that their orientation is one of a posture of learning, and of a temporary assignment and call to service.

With such an orientation towards service the fundamental relationship between individuals and institutions will begin to experience the transformation that is the prerequisite for a divine civilization.

Can you identify and list all those qualities, attitudes, habits and postures that characterize a decaying world order? Can you now identify and list all those qualities, attitudes, habits and postures that characterize a developing new world order? Are you able to find appropriate passages to illuminate your list, from within the Writings, and guidance of the House of Justice? Would such a list, with your appropriate commentary, be useful to those who serve on various institutions serving a community? 

Baha'u'llah wrote: "That seeker must, at all times, put his trust in God, must renounce the peoples of the earth, must detach himself from the world of dust, and cleave unto Him Who is the Lord of Lords. He must never seek to exalt himself above any one, must wash away from the tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vain-glory, must cling unto patience and resignation, observe silence and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smoldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endureth a century."

Softening a hardened clay

Recently I participated as a visitor in the annual National Convention in USA, held at the Mother Temple of the West. As it is customary the convention began by reading of, and then reflection upon, the Ridvan message from the Universal House of Justice. But this year there was a particular sense that we were on sacred grounds at a sacred time. The very spot on which we had gathered has been mentioned in this Ridvan message "that the proclamation of the oneness of mankind shall go forth from its open courts of holiness.”

Baha’u’llah in His Tablet of the World wrote a passage, and I think that it links directly with this image that the Universal House of Justice has provided for us in this Ridvan’s message, namely the image of the world as hardened clay, and the Bahá’í message as an instrument to soften the hearts.

These are the words of the Blessed Beauty: “Justice is, in this day, bewailing its plight, and Equity groaneth beneath the yoke of oppression. The thick clouds of tyranny have darkened the face of the earth, and enveloped its peoples. Through the movement of Our Pen of glory We have, at the bidding of the omnipotent Ordainer, breathed a new life into every human frame, and instilled into every word a fresh potency. All created things proclaim the evidences of this world-wide regeneration. This is the most great, the most joyful tidings imparted by the Pen of this Wronged One to mankind. Wherefore fear ye, O My well-beloved ones? Who is it that can dismay you? A touch of moisture sufficeth to dissolve the hardened clay out of which this perverse generation is moulded.”

As I understand it, in the imagery used in the Writings, fire stands for love, and water stands for knowledge. So when He says that a touch of moisture sufficeth to dissolve the hardened clay, I understand from this that knowledge will play a central role in capturing the human heart, and in transforming the society. The knowledge that we gain in a practical way from implementing the institute process and the provisions of the Five Year Plan in our neighborhoods and clusters will be the instrument to break the ground. And in the Ridvan message the Universal House of Justice uses the same imagery, opening the message with this same concept: “Abdu'l-Baha, standing before an audience several hundred strong, lifted a workman's axe and pierced the turf covering the Temple site at Grosse Pointe, north of Chicago.”

And again in later paragraphs of this same message we see the same imagery: “Akin to the hard earth struck by the Master a century ago, the prevailing theories of the age may, at first, seem impervious to alteration, but they will undoubtedly fade away, and through the "vernal showers of the bounty of God", the "flowers of true understanding" will spring up fresh and fair.”

And as each cluster moves to the tip of the arrow of learning, as gaining of knowledge accelerates, as we learn how to multiply the core activities in sustainable ways, at the root of which lies an educational process of limitless potentialities, each such cluster will earn the spiritual reward of building a House of Worship. Today five such clusters have reached this level, and two national ones. 

As the head of the Faith has written in the closing sentence:"The ground broken by the hand of 'Abdu'1-Baha a hundred years ago is to be broken again in seven more countries, this being but the prelude to the day when within every city and village, in obedience to the bidding of Baha'u'llah, a building is upraised for the worship of the Lord. From these Dawning-Points of the Remembrance of God will shine the rays of His light and peal out the anthems of His praise."

A framework for understanding

One way to understand the world around us is to think in terms of processes. First there are the twin processes of integration and disintegration. The world at large is undergoing the processes of disintegration of the Old World Order, while at the same time the Bahá’í community, along with a group of like-minded peoples and organizations, are experiencing the process of integration towards the ultimate goal of a New World Order.

And then within each one of these two processes there are other processes. These are complex, and interrelated to each other. We need to better understand them if we want to have any hope of effectively contributing to them. For example the process of integration itself is made up of “interacting processes that, in their totality, engender the expansion and consolidation of the Faith”. If we fail to properly appreciate these processes we cannot be as successful in the execution of the Divine Plan.

To help us better understand the nature and workings of these interacting processes the Universal House of Justice has provided us with a concept as part of a framework for analysis and understanding. This concept is that we recognize the existence of three participants in a global enterprise, which are the three protagonists of change, namely the individual, the institutions, and the community. At first this will sound like a simple concept, involving what appears to be obviously true. But after some reflection we realize that in fact there is a profound truth that appears to be hidden here and it is deceptively simple. 

Humanity’s past, in our collective stage of infancy, and the current disintegrating Old World Order, is characterized by conflict among these three, “with the individual clamouring for freedom, the institution demanding submission, and the community claiming precedence.”

In theory and in practice, in politics and in economics, there is great confusion about the relationships among these three. A famous British prime minister even went so far as to deny the existence of society, reducing it merely to a the existence of a collection of individuals.

Attempts at social and economic development of peoples have given rise to various ideas in political economics that are then variously labeled as conservative or liberal, republican or democratic, capitalist or socialist, business friendly or labor backed. Over a number of decades these thoughts and ideologies have crystallized and polarized leading to an antagonistic stand off that today use every means from propaganda to manipulation of the mass media to achieve partisan ends. Such activities often take the shape of short sound bites and slogans. The struggle for power between individuals, communities and institutions seems to be without end, consuming the vast majority of the resources of the planet. The fog of confusion is so thick that even many of our seemingly sharp minds are trapped in it.

Yet the Universal House of Justice, in its letter of 28 December 2010, the final paragraphs of 40-44, from which all quotes in this post are taken, gives us a tool for analysis in terms of the relationships among these three participants. If we better develop our skills in analyzing the human condition using this tool, we will readily see that what the Bahá’í community is doing in practice is to create a model community within which these three exist in harmony and mutual support.

“The worldwide crisis of authority provides proof enough.  So grievous have been its abuses, and so deep the suspicion and resentment it now arouses, that the world is becoming increasingly ungovernable – a situation made all the more perilous by the weakening of community ties.”

By contrast we are learning about developing new relationships that bind people together. “At a fundamental level these relationships are characterized by cooperation and reciprocity, manifestations of the interconnectedness that governs the universe.” While the legitimate rights of the individuals are inviolable, each individual sees himself or herself as a servant of God, and recognizes that his twin moral purposes can only be fulfilled through service to humanity. And ""wealth of sentiment, abundance of good-will and effort are of little avail when their flow is not directed along proper channels,” so that "the unfettered freedom of the individual should be tempered with mutual consultation and sacrifice," and that "the spirit of initiative and enterprise should be reinforced by a deeper realization of the supreme necessity for concerted action and a fuller devotion to the common weal."" 

Such a realization leads to mutual support of the legitimate institutions of society by and for individuals. “Composed of such individuals and such institutions, the community of the Greatest Name becomes that spiritually charged arena in which powers are multiplied in unified action.”

“It is of this community that 'Abdu'l-Baha writes:  "When any souls grow to be true believers, they will attain a spiritual relationship with one another, and show forth a tenderness which is not of this world.  They will, all of them, become elated from a draught of divine love, and that union of theirs, that connection, will also abide forever.  Souls, that is, who will consign their own selves to oblivion, strip from themselves the defects of humankind, and unchain themselves from human bondage, will beyond any doubt be illumined with the heavenly splendours of oneness, and will all attain unto real union in the world that dieth not."”

Within and Yet Apart

One of the goals of the Baha'i community is to help transform the society around us. This goal applies equally to all societies the world over. Such a goal is rooted in the belief that we humans are capable of creating societies that are significantly better than what we see today. Therefore there are positive and hopeful sentiments that drive this goal.

When we analyze the condition of our societies we may see numerous signs of injustice, of greed, of inhumanity, of heedlessness, and so on. It is easy for us to be driven to a stage of hopelessness and give up. But the power of faith and assurances given in the Baha'i Writings encourage us to keep on going.

Some puritan groups may suggest that to create a just society we must separate ourselves from the current societies, and create a smaller group of people, who live in isolation. We can then implement stricter codes of conduct, and engineer the conditions to bring about greater justice, or greater equality, or greater love and fellowship. We do not subscribe to this view.

We believe that we should "become increasingly involved in the life of society". And it is for this reason that we try to reduce any barriers that may exist between the Baha'i community and the wider society. It is also for this same reason that the core activities of the Baha'i community are designed to be open to all. In our engagement with the society at large, we should benefit "from its educational programmes, excelling in its trades and professions, learning to employ well its tools, and applying themselves to the advancement of its arts and sciences." And indeed where I live, in the US, the Baha'i community is among the most educated, and most accomplished communities. 

At the same time that we are within the society, and operating within its tools, we have to be careful not to be contaminated by its vagaries. If we want to be able to effectively transform the society then we cannot become victims of its forces. We have to be within it and yet apart from it. This represents an interesting challenge. "The magnitude of the challenge facing the friends in this respect is not lost on us", wrote the Universal House of Justice. We "are never to lose sight of the aim of the Faith to effect a transformation of society, remoulding its institutions and processes, on a scale never before witnessed."  We "must remain acutely aware of the inadequacies of current modes of thinking and doing -- this, without feeling the least degree of superiority, without assuming an air of secrecy or aloofness, and without adopting an unnecessarily critical stance towards society."   

This challenge is presented to us in paragraph 36 of the letter of 28 December 2010 from the Universal House of Justice. Within a cluster, a group of friends who are engaged in building communities in neighborhoods can ask ourselves to what extent we are able to overcome this challenge. It is easy to remain dry if you always stay out of the water. But as we need to dive in to help rescue others from the onrushing floods of materialism, it is normal to get wet, and that is understandable, so long as we ourselves are not swept away.

As we think about these principles, does the quote below begin to take on new and added meanings for you?

Baha'u'llah wrote: "O Son of Being! Make mention of Me on My earth, that in My heaven I may remember thee..."

Habits of Thought

The Universal House of Justice in its letter of 28 December 2010 addressed to the Continental Boards of Counsellors laid out a body of inspired guidance for the Friends. In this document there is a section that describes certain ways and habits of thinking. In the words of the House of Justice “Apart from the spiritual requisites of a sanctified Baha'i life, there are habits of thought that affect the unfoldment of the global Plan, and their development has to be encouraged at the level of culture.  There are tendencies, as well, that need to be gradually overcome.  Many of these tendencies are reinforced by approaches prevalent in society at large, which, not altogether unreasonably, enter into Baha'i activity.” As the Friends study this infallible guidance we should ask ourselves what are such tendencies, how do they start, what reinforces them, and how can we free ourselves from them. This subject takes up the four paragraphs numbered 36 to 39 of the current Five Year Plan. Instead of writing one post for each of these four paragraphs and suggesting a few questions for the study of each paragraph, a pattern that characterizes all the previous posts in this blog, I am thinking of doing something a little different and more integrated. Therefore please just see the more extensive paper at this link which describes in some details these salutary habits and analyzes the associated three tendencies to be overcome.


Abdu'l-Baha wrote that "The reality of man is his thought, not his material body. The thought force and the animal force are partners. Although man is part of the animal creation, he possesses a power of thought superior to all other created beings."

Spiritual Qualities

The Bahá’í community has a program for the effective transformation of the individuals and the creation of a new world civilization. This program can be clearly distinguished from ideas, suggestions, proposals, principles, and sentiments held by a large and disparate group of people, all of whom would want to contribute to the betterment of the world. To better appreciate the features of this program we observe that since 1996 the Bahá’í community is engaged in creating, step by step, the elements of this program. To effectively carry out any program, it requires a number of people who are able and willing to implement its provisions. To systematically train a large number and develop in them the knowledge, the spiritual insight, and the skills to carry out the various activities, some 250 training institutes were created throughout the world in 1996. These institutes are organizational structures dedicated to providing formal educational programs that systematically raise the capacity of its participants.

We have studied three spiritual prerequisites, namely rectitude of conduct, a chaste and holy life, and elimination of all forms of prejudice. These spiritual qualities may have been the object of numerous sermons throughout the ages and in various settings. So what is the source of our optimism? The answer lies in the fact that our approach is fundamentally different from expressions of pious hope. It involves a practical and systematic method that raises capacity for action, then accompanies the participants to engage in action. And at each stage these spiritual qualities are studied, then practiced, and their implications and applications in realistic circumstances explored. Rectitude of conduct is woven in the study of the Books, woven in the practices, and woven in reflections on action. It becomes impossible for a person to ignore it as we move from cycle to cycle.

And there are two complimentary principles before us: be absolutely strict on the principles, and completely understanding of the efforts of the individuals. We “recognize the importance of two fundamental, interlocking precepts:  On the one hand, the high standard of conduct inculcated by Baha'u'llah's Revelation can admit no compromise; it can, in no wise, be lowered, and all must fix their gaze on its lofty heights.  On the other, it must be acknowledged that, as human beings, we are far from perfect; what is expected of everyone is sincere daily effort.  Self-righteousness is to be eschewed.”

In the study of this 35^th paragraph of the letter of 28 December 2010 of the Universal House of Justice, the following questions come to mind:

1. How does the educational process associated with the training institute help to foster the spiritual conditions that must distinguish the life of the Bahá’í community?
2. How does the training institute promote the spirit of unity that must animate the friends?
3. How does the training institute engender the ties of love that must bind the collaborators?
4. How does the training institute secure firmness in the Covenant that must sustain the participants?
5. How does the training institute increase reliance and trust the learners must place on the power of divine assistance?

Abdu’l-Baha wrote: “…You should strive day and night so that endowed with heavenly strength, inspired with brilliant motives and aided by His celestial power and heavenly grace and confirmation, you may become the ornaments of the world of humanity, and preeminent among those who are initiated into true learning and the love of God. You must be distinguished amidst men by your sanctity and detachment, loftiness of purpose, magnanimity, determination, noble mindedness, tenacity, the elevation of your aims and your spiritual qualities”. [Bahá’í Prayers and Tablets for the Young, p. 30]

On Racial Prejudice

The third spiritual prerequisite for the success of all Bahá’í undertakings is the elimination of all forms of prejudice. There are of course many forms of prejudice. These include race, class, ethnicity, gender, national origin, or religious belief. And they can be subtle or overt. But in all cases it represents an intolerable injustice. It denies opportunities for progress to its victims, and it corrupts and retards the spiritual progress of its perpetrators.

Of all the various forms of prejudice, racial prejudice has had a particularly significant history in United States. It was in reaction to this racial prejudice that the Master, Abdu’l-Baha, guided the Bahá’í community to work towards it eradication, to hold integrated interracial meetings, and he encouraged interracial marriages. In the Bahá’í community today there is a particularly significant number of marriages among the Americans of Iranian descent and those of African American heritage.

Commenting on the contributions of the African Americans, the Universal House of Justice wrote on 3^rd of June 2007 “that every people, through its inherent potentialities and particular range of experience, will make its own distinct contribution to the creation of a new civilization. To the extent that African-Americans who embrace the new Revelation arise to do their part by adhering to the Teachings will the gifts which are uniquely theirs be realized in the splendors of the Golden Age. The “pupil of the eye”, Bahá’u’lláh’s metaphoric reference to Black people, will no doubt acquire clear meaning as they conscientiously strive over time to fulfill the divine purpose for which the Blessed Beauty came. There can be no doubt that Americans of African descent can find in themselves the capacity, so well developed as a result of their long encounter with injustice, to recognize and respond to the vision of love and justice brought by the Promised One of all ages. Imbued with that vision, past and present sufferings are transformed into measures of patience, wisdom and compassion—qualities so essential to the effort to moderate the discordant ways of a confused world and aid the healing of its spiritual ills. What better than the transformed character of a bruised people to smooth the course, to offer perspectives for new beginnings toward world order!”  

Eradicating racism requires concerted effort by all people, of any color. It is in this spirit that Abdu’l-Baha, during His visit with a group of African Americans in Washington DC in 1912, advised them to recognize with gratitude the efforts of all those who fought for the emancipation of the slaves.

“But those were the happenings of yesterday, and we are now living in a new Day. Centuries have elapsed, and… the long promised springtime has indeed come… for with the vision of the future unveiled by His Word all things become new and memories of a horrific past fade in the brilliance of the new Light. This vision assumes a special luminosity when considered in the sense of Bahá’u’lláh’s characterization of the first Ridván, the time of His great announcement in Baghdad, as the Day whereon “all created things were immersed in the sea of purification”, whereon “the breezes of forgiveness were wafted over the entire creation”. How clearly, then, He created a new beginning, separating the past from the present and beckoning the entire human race to the path leading towards realization of the ultimate and most glorious purpose for which it was created.”

“The summons of Bahá’u’lláh to so outright a departure from the past moves us away from ancient models of activity… For Bahá’u’lláh, in vowing to create a new race, has provided the instruments by which the processes of the social transformation of those composing it are to be guided. He has given us the prescription for a new World Order, declaring that “mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.” As His followers strive to raise up this System, which comprises the institutions of His administration at the local, national and global levels, the spiritual and practical powers of its world-shaping capacity will gradually increase. But we need dedicated souls in great numbers to accomplish what has to be done, and it is for this reason that the House of Justice has set forth a Five Year Plan that calls upon us all to make efforts to advance the process of entry by troops.”

Today we are “inspired by a thought to stimulate African-Americans to respond to the urgent call to action of the Divine Plan and so overcome the crippling effects of a long history of oppression… Indeed, the fulfillment of their highest hopes for the advancement of the race depends on the extent to which they maintain their dedication to the Five Year Plan and succeeding enterprises that the House of Justice will devise in a continuing effort to accomplish the Master’s scheme for world redemption… Such consecrated endeavor is the only way by which they can arrive at the furthermost goal of the common destiny of the entire human race: the Kingdom of God on earth.”

Today the Bahá’í community is engaged in developing communities in receptive neighborhoods. In such circumstances people of all races work alongside each other by studying and acting, and by walking shoulder to shoulder in a common path of service. What guides this action are these words of Universal House of Justice, written in April 2008: “Sustaining growth in cluster after cluster will depend on the qualities that distinguish your service to the peoples of the world.  So free must be  your thoughts and actions of any trace of prejudice--racial, religious, economic, national, tribal, class, or cultural--that even the stranger sees in you loving friends.  So high must be your standard of excellence and so pure and chaste your lives that the moral influence you exert penetrates the consciousness of the wider community.  Only if you demonstrate the rectitude of conduct to which the writings of the Faith call every soul will you be able to struggle against the myriad forms of corruption, overt and subtle, eating at the vitals of society.  Only if you perceive honour and nobility in every human being--this independent of wealth or poverty--will you be able to champion the cause of justice.  And to the extent that administrative processes of your institutions are governed by the principles of Baha'i consultation will the great masses of humanity be able to take refuge in the Baha'i community.”

As we study this 34^th paragraph of the letter of 28 December 2010, the following questions are suggested:

1. What has “bitten into the fibre, and attacked the whole social structure of American society”?
2.  What “should be regarded as constituting the most vital and challenging issue confronting” our communities?
3.  What sort of prejudices “continue to hold a strong grip on humanity”?
4.  What is the difference between “refuting the falsehoods that give rise to prejudice” at the “level of public discourse” and prejudice permeating “the structures of society”?
5.  How do the methods and instruments of the Plan “disable every instrument devised by humanity over the long period of its childhood for one group to oppress another”?