The Bahá’í Cause is distinguished above all else by its nature as an uncompromised organic whole. Embodying the principle of unity that lies at the heart of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation, this nature is the sign of the presence of the indwelling Spirit that animates the Faith. Alone among the religions of history—and despite repeated efforts to break this unity—the Cause has successfully resisted the perennial blight of schism and faction. The success of the community’s teaching work is assured by the fact that the instruments it uses were created by the Revelation itself, that it was the Faith’s Founders who conceived the methods for the prosecution of its Divine Plan, and that it was They who guided, in every significant detail, the launching of the enterprise. During the twentieth century, through the efforts of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the Guardian, Mount Carmel itself has become an expression of this oneness of the Faith’s being. In contrast to the circumstances of other world religions, the spiritual and administrative centres of the Cause are inseparably bound together in this same spot on earth, its guiding institutions centred on the Shrine of its martyred Prophet. For many visitors, even the harmony that has been achieved in the variegated flowers, trees and shrubs of the surrounding gardens seems to proclaim the ideal of unity in diversity that they find attractive in the Faith’s teachings.
Nothing so dramatically marked the conclusion of one hundred years of achievement as an event that also plunged believers the world over into deep sorrow. On 19 January 2000, a message from the Universal House of Justice announced:
In the early hours of this morning, the soul of Amatu’l-Bahá Rúḥíyyih Khánum, beloved consort of Shoghi Effendi and the Bahá’í world’s last remaining link with the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, was released from the limitations of this earthly existence.... Her twenty years of intimate association with Shoghi Effendi evoked from his pen such accolades as “my helpmate’, ‘my shield’, ‘my tireless collaborator in the arduous tasks I shoulder’....
As the initial shock of grief began to lift, appreciation of yet another of the inexhaustible bounties of Bahá’u’lláh gradually took its place. To a figure whose long lifetime had spanned most of the century—and whose indomitable spirit had sustained Bahá’í struggles and sacrifices throughout its latter half—it had been given to live and celebrate the magnificent victories to which she had so magnificently contributed.
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In calling on those who have recognized Him to share the message of the Day of God with others, Bahá’u’lláh turns again to the language of creation itself: “Every body calleth aloud for a soul. Heavenly souls must needs quicken, with the breath of the Word of God, the dead bodies with a fresh spirit.”[159] The principle is as true of the collective life of humankind, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá points out, as it is of the lives of its individual members: “Material civilization is like the body. No matter how infinitely graceful, elegant and beautiful it may be, it is dead. Divine civilization is like the spirit, and the body gets its life from the spirit....”[160]
In this compelling analogy is summed up the relationship between the two historical developments that the Will of God propelled forward along converging tracks during the century of light. Only a person blind to the intellectual and social capacities latent in the human race, and insensitive to humanity’s desperate needs, could fail to take deep satisfaction from the advances that society has made during the past hundred years, and particularly from the processes knitting together the earth’s peoples and nations. How much more are such achievements cherished by Bahá’ís, who see in them the very Purpose of God. But this Body of humanity’s material civilization calls aloud, yearns more desperately with each passing day, for its Soul. As with every great civilization in history, until it is so animated, and its spiritual faculties awakened, it will find neither peace, nor justice, nor a unity that rises above the level of negotiation and compromise. Addressing the “elected representatives of the people in every land”, Bahá’u’lláh wrote:
That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.[161]
It is not, therefore, in providing support, nor encouragement, nor even example that the work of the Cause chiefly lies. The Bahá’í community will go on contributing in every way possible to efforts toward global unification and social betterment, but such contributions are secondary to its purpose. Its purpose is to assist the people of the world to open their minds and hearts to the one Power that can fulfil their ultimate longing. There are none, except those who have themselves awakened to the Revelation of God, who can bring this help. There are none who can offer credible testimony to a coming world of peace and justice but those who understand, however dimly, the words with which the Voice of God summoned Bahá’u’lláh to arise and undertake His mission:
Canst thou discover any one but Me, O Pen, in this Day? What hath become of the creation and the manifestations thereof? What of the names and their kingdom? Whither are gone all created things, whether seen or unseen? What of the hidden secrets of the universe and its revelations? Lo, the entire creation hath passed away! Nothing remaineth except My Face, the Ever-Abiding, the Resplendent, the All-Glorious.