What Bahá’ís do?

 Bahá’ís live and work in tens of thousands of localities in every continent of the globe, and viewed together they can be said to represent the diversity of the entire human race. Wherever they reside, Bahá’í families and friends engage in efforts to apply Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings to the material and spiritual progress of their communities.
In a mode characterized by a willingness to learn, they strive to contribute to a process of community building in which acts of worship and efforts to promote the common good are woven together. Everyone willing to participate in this process is welcome. Its purpose, after all, is to help raise the capacity of more and more people to take charge of their spiritual, social, and intellectual development so that they come to see themselves as active agents of both their own and their communities’ progress, rather than passive spectators of events beyond their control.

What Bahá’ís Believe, Essential Relationships

The supreme need of humanity is...

cooperation and reciprocity

 
In any given community, the culture it promotes, the attitudes it fosters, and the patterns of thought and behaviour it cultivates, are largely defined by its members’ collective sense of purpose. When that purpose is to contribute to the betterment of society, the community becomes a setting in which powers are multiplied in unified action, where individual will and collective volition are blended, and where the spirit of enterprise is reinforced by a realization of the need for concerted action and a commitment to the common good.
 “The supreme need of humanity is cooperation and reciprocity,” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “The stronger the ties of fellowship and solidarity amongst men, the greater will be the power of constructiveness and accomplishment in all the planes of human activity.” In the same way that the human being is more than the sum of the individual cells which comprise its body, so too the powers of a unified community far exceed the combined powers of its individual members.

What Bahá’ís Believe, Essential Relationships

Rendering some service

 In the context of the transformation of society, our purpose is to help carry forward an ever-advancing civilization, devoting our energy and abilities to promote the welfare of the human race. “Think ye at all times of rendering some service to every member of the human race…” said ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “Be ye sincerely kind, not in appearance only…Let him do some good to every person whose path he crosseth, and be of some benefit to him. Let him improve the character of each and all, and reorient the minds of men.”

 We pursue this two-fold moral purpose propelled by the conviction we are members of one human family.

The standard that Bahá’u’lláh envisages for the individual who can effectively play his or her part in actively assisting society to achieve lasting material and spiritual prosperity is high indeed. Yet perfection is not a requirement; what is required of us is a sincere daily effort to move towards this high standard. We are asked to tread a common path of service—supporting each other and advancing together, with sufficient humility to value the contribution of each person and avoid the pitfalls of self-righteousness.

What Bahá’ís Believe, Essential Relationships

Every individual is a member of the human family

 Every individual is a member of the human family and makes a contribution to the life of society. The individual takes initiative, seizes opportunities, forms friendships and builds relationships, joins with others in common service, and acts on decisions.

 “And the honour and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good,”
 wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

 In order to act effectively during the present period of transition in human history, individuals must, above all, be imbued with a strong sense of purpose that impels them both to pursue their own spiritual and intellectual growth and to contribute to the transformation of society. These are fundamentally inseparable dimensions of a single process, for the standards and behaviours of individuals shape their environment and, in turn, are moulded by social structures and processes.

What Bahá’ís Believe, Essential Relationships

This is man’s uttermost wretchedness

 
And this is man’s uttermost wretchedness: that he should live inert, apathetic, dull, involved only with his own base appetites. When he is thus, he has his being in the deepest ignorance and savagery, sinking lower than the brute beasts. “They are like the brutes: Yea, they go more astray… For the vilest beasts in God’s sight, are the deaf, the dumb, who understand not.” 

 We must now highly resolve to arise and lay hold of all those instrumentalities that promote the peace and well-being and happiness, the knowledge, culture and industry, the dignity, value and station, of the entire human race. Thus, through the restoring waters of pure intention and unselfish effort, the earth of human potentialities will blossom with its own latent excellence and flower into praiseworthy qualities, and bear and flourish until it comes to rival that rose garden of knowledge which belonged to our forefathers. Then will this  holy land of Persia become in every sense the focal center of human perfections, reflecting as if in a mirror the full panoply of world civilization.

`Abdu'l-Bahá The Secret of Divine Civilization, P.5

How long shall we drift on

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

How long shall we drift on the wings of passion and vain desire; how long shall we spend our days like barbarians in the depths of ignorance and abomination? God has given us eyes, that we may look about us at the world, and lay hold of whatsoever will further civilization and the arts of living. He has given us ears, that we may hear and profit by the wisdom of scholars and philosophers and arise to promote and practice it. Senses and faculties have been bestowed upon us, to be devoted to the service of the general good; so that we, distinguished above all other forms of life for perceptiveness and reason, should labor at all times and along all lines, whether the occasion be great or small, ordinary or extraordinary, until all mankind are safely gathered into the impregnable stronghold of knowledge.
We should continually be establishing new bases for human happiness and creating and promoting new instrumentalities toward this end. How excellent, how honorable is man if he arises to fulfil his responsibilities; how wretched and contemptible, if he shuts his eyes to the welfare of society and wastes his precious life in pursuing his own selfish interests and personal advantages. Supreme happiness is man’s, and he beholds the signs of God in the world and in the human soul, if he urges on the steed of high endeavor in the arena of civilization and justice. “We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves.”

 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization. P.4

Essential Relationships

“The supreme need of humanity is cooperation
and reciprocity.”
‘Abdu’l‑Bahá

We are living today in a unique period in history. As humanity emerges from childhood and approaches its collective maturity, the need for a new understanding of the relationships between the individual, the community, and the institutions of society becomes ever more pressing.
 The interdependence of these three protagonists in the advancement of civilization has to be recognized and old paradigms of conflict, in which, for example, institutions demand submission while individuals clamour for freedom, need to be replaced with more profound conceptions of the complementary roles to be played by each in building a better world.
To accept that the individual, the community, and the institutions of society are the protagonists of civilization building, and to act accordingly, opens up great possibilities for human happiness and allows for the creation of environments in which the true powers of the human spirit can be released.

The Individual and Society