A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis
LESSONS LEARNED BY THE AUTHOR (Part 19)
WHY I AM TRYING TO BE A BAHÁ’Í
Only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”
Shoghi Effendi
“O Ye rich ones on Earth! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.”
Bahá’u’llah
I am trying to be a Bahá’í because:
I now understand that I have been created to know God and to worship God.
I now understand that my mission in life is to contribute to an ever-advancing civilization.
I now understand that the trials I have experienced in my life have been for my spiritual growth.
To create an ever-advancing civilization requires knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
The sources of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are science and religion.
Up till now humanity has used either religion or science.
From now on humanity has to use both science and religion working harmoniously together.
The trials that humanity has suffered during its long history and especially during the 20th century have been for its spiritual growth.
The mission of the Bahá’í Faith is the spiritual conquest of the entire planet.
The mission of the Bahá’í Faith is also to have religions agree and to make the nations one so that all may see each other as one family and the whole earth as one home in which we all live together in perfect harmony.
When I left university in 1961 I wanted to leave the world a better place by following the conventional path but found, on retirement, that all I had done was make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
In retirement my goal is still to leave the world a better place but as I cannot do it on my own I have chosen to work with the Bahá’ís as they are at the forefront of building a new civilization that has the potential to last longer than any prior civilization.
The Bahá’í Faith has absorbed the lessons of history and the weaknesses within past civilizations and within humans and has provided very clear guidelines how to overcome those weaknesses as the basis for the new civilization.
The Bahá’í system of management is equal to or better than the best of global corporations in its vision of a civilization that will allow heaven to be built on earth, its mission of spiritualizing the planet through service to humanity, its planning, its organization, its outstanding leadership, its philosophy of participatory management through consultation while retaining firm central control, and its updated strategic plan every few years.
To establish the Kingdom of God in the world, it must first be established in the hearts of men. To be a Bahá’í means to love all the world, to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood, and to struggle to be as perfect as possible.
The Bahá’í worships not the human personality of Bahá’u’lláh, but the glory of God manifest through that personality. He reverences Christ and Muhammad and all God’s former Messengers to mankind, but he recognizes Bahá’u’lláh as the bearer of God’s Message for the new age in which we live, as the Great World teacher who has come to carry on and consummate the work of His predecessors.
The Bahá’í will on no account force his ideas on those who do not wish to hear them. He will attract people to the Kingdom of God, not try to drive them into it.
The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh is that Religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the non-essential aspects of their doctrines and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.
The Bahá’ís with whom I have worked in Greece, especially the youth, are full of joy and radiance and optimistic about the long-term future, although they know that we will pass through hard times in the near-future. They are deadly serious in their mission of spiritualizing their local community through service but are also fun to be with.