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“Religion should unite all
hearts and cause wars
and disputes to vanish from the face
of the earth,
give birth to spirituality, and
bring life and light to
each heart. If religion becomes a cause
of dislike,
hatred, division, it were better to be without
it,
. .
.”
`Abdu’l-Bahá.
(1)
THE
ONENESS OF RELIGION
Often in the past religion has caused strife. Sometimes
co-religionists have fought about
religious disagreement;
sometimes men have
attacked those of a
different faith to force
acceptance of their own
belief. Still more often,
differences of religion
or sect have caused hatred,
division and dislike,
without physical violence.
Even to-day there are
millions of people who try to
make others unhappy
because they do not approve
of their religious
beliefs. Many more contribute to
discord by narrow
insistence on their religious view
and refusal to
investigate the views of others.
A
casual glance at the great religions of the
world is enough, if
unprejudiced, to reveal that they have much in common.
All teach that we should
love one another, do
good, be sincere, truthful and
law-abiding; that we
should seek out our own
shortcomings before we
presume to condemn the
faults of others, and
that we should not consider
ourselves superior to
our neighbours. Each has a
Central Figure, who is
revered above all men and a
scripture based on His
teaching. With so much in
common, it is strange
that the followers of different
religions should be so
antagonistic to each other’s
beliefs.
The
point has been well made by George
Townshend in his book The
Promise of All Ages:
“All the world
over, mankind has honoured
the spokesmen of God and
has adopted their
teachings. It reveres
Christ, Buddha, Zoroaster,
Krishna, and other
High-Prophets as its greatest
leaders. But it has not
looked on them as related
to one another. It has
thought of them as rivals,
competing for the homage
of the world. It has
imagined that to accept
the revelation of one is
to deny the revelation
of every other and that the
votaries of any one
High-Prophet are not loyal to
their Lord unless they
esteem him the sole
authentic revealer come
from God. It has
balanced the
High-Prophets against one another
as it were in scales, so
that when one goes up, the
others must go down; . .
. Thus the influence of
religion, which ought to
have tended to unify the
peoples of the world, has through a
misunderstanding
engendered hostility and
strife.
The High-Prophets never spoke ill of one
another:
the antagonism originated with their
followers..
. . None affirmed that his revelation
was
final or exhaustive; . . .” (2)
The
followers of the Great Leaders have caused
differences
between religions to appear which had
no
part in the Message of their Founders. The
Founders
preached unity and concord because,
although
each revealed His Message in a form
suited
to the particular needs of a particular age,
their
Revelation was in essence one. Bahá’u’lláh,
the
Central Figure of the Bahá’í Faith, explains
this
in a beautiful passage:
“Their revelation may be likened
unto the
light of the moon that sheddeth it
radiance upon
the earth. Though every time it
appeareth, it
revealeth a fresh measure of its
brightness, yet
its inherent splendour can never
diminish, nor
can its light suffer extinction.
It is clear and evident, therefore,
that any
apparent variation in the intensity
of their light
is not inherent in the light itself,
but should
rather be attributed to the
varying receptivity
of
an ever-changing world. Every
Prophet Whom
the Almighty and Peerless Creator
hath
purposed to send to the peoples of
the earth hath
been entrusted with a Message, and
charged to
act in a manner that would best meet
the
requirements of
the age in which He
appeared.”
(3)
Needs
change, and the needs of yesterday are not
the
needs of today; laws that were fitting when
mankind
was young would not be fitting now.
Progress
decrees that the form of religion revealed
for
an earlier stage of man’s development cannot
suit
the later stages too. Under the tuition of each
of
the Great Educators humanity advances, so that
the
next Manifestation of God comes to men
prepared
to hear what before was hidden.
It
is as though man ascended through the classes
of
a school; each successive teacher imparts more
truths
to the child and when he has digested these he
is ready to move to the next class. The lesson is
suited
to the child’s stage of progress; there would
be
no advantage in giving a sixth-form lesson to a
first-form
pupil, rather the too great demand on
the
undeveloped soul would cause it to wither and
die.
So also the teaching of the Great educators is
mercifully
adapted to the stage of development
reached
by mankind.
The
Messenger of God reveals both spiritual
truths,
which are eternal, and laws belonging to a
particular
age. The spiritual truths are revealed
according
to the spiritual development of the men
of
that time. Thus Moses said: “Love thy
neighbour
as
thyself,"
(4) but only the rarer spirits
in
His dispensation realised that Gentiles also were
their
neighbours. Jesus stressed that love should
extend
beyond the Jewish race, but still His
followers
were unable to grasp fully the oneness of
mankind.
Only recently have men progressed
enough
to regard the whole human race as one
family,
without division of colour, class or creed.
Bahá’u’lláh,
coming to a world prepared by the
long
line of earlier Messengers of God, could make
this
a central feature of His Teaching. All three
Messengers
were aware of the truth taught by
Bahá’u’lláh,
but until now man has not been ready
to
receive its full force. Knowing the limitations of
the
men of His age, Jesus said:
“I have yet many things to say
unto you but ye
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when
He, the
Spirit
of
Truth, is come, He will guide
you unto
all truth: ”
(5)
Besides
such eternal teachings gradually
unfolded
to the advancing spirit of man, each
Messenger
of God also brings temporary laws and
commands.
These may be changed by the next of
God’s
Messengers. To the Tribes of Israel
wandering
in the desert, Moses gave many laws
which
Jesus in a later age repealed. Yet even as He
repealed
them Jesus proclaimed: “Think
not that I
am come to destroy the law, or the
prophets; I am
not come to destroy, but to
fulfil.”
(6) The truth
that
shines through the Law of Moses is revealed
also
in the Law of Jesus; but circumstances in the
world
had changed and a new law was needed to
fulfil
the old.
When
the Israelites were in the desert, they had
no
prisons and no established home. Had Moses
not
ordained strict laws with fearful punishments,
the
innocent among Israel would have been at the
mercy
of the vicious. Love and Justice demanded
that
the law be strong. Therefore Moses decreed
death
as the penalty for ten separate offences. “An
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth ” (7) was
in
those
days a merciful command, prohibiting
excessive
punishment. Later, when Jesus came,
altered
circumstances permitted the law of love to
be
expressed in gentler form. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Son of
Bahá’u’lláh,
has explained this in the following
words:
“The practical part of religion
deals with
exterior
forms and ceremonies, and
with modes
of punishment for certain offences.
This is the
material side of the law, and guides
the customs
and manners of the people.
In the time of Moses, there were ten
crimes
punishable by death. When Christ
came this was
changed; the old axiom, ‘an eye
for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth,’ was converted
into ‘Love your
enemies, do good to them that hate
you’, the
stern old law being changed into one
of love,
mercy and
forbearance!
In the former days the punishment
for theft
was the cutting off
of the right
hand; in our time
this law could not be so applied. In
this age, a
man who curses his father is allowed
to live,
when formerly he would have been put
to death.
It is therefore evident that whilst
the spiritual
law never alters, the practical
rules must change
their application with the
necessities of the
time. ” (8)
To
change these rules, and to give man more
advanced
teaching, God sends His Messengers to
walk
upon the earth.
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Bahá'u'lláh forbids:
